Why days of truly dominant PGA Tour seasons may be over, says Patrick Cantlay

The last two years have yielded remarkable performances by two PGA Tour stars who are now household names: Patrick Cantlay claimed four wins in 2020-21, and Scottie Scheffler matched the feat this year with four wins of his own, including a major.

Prior to Scheffler and Cantlay’s performances, the top win tally on Tour had been stuck at three for a few years. Justin Thomas had a five-win season in 2017, and both Jordan Spieth and Jason Day had one in 2015.

Big win tallies have long been the norm for top performers in golf’s modern era, with players like Tiger Woods and Vijay Singh hitting nine wins in a season in 2000 and 2004, respectively. Woods, of course, also had two eight-win seasons, in 1999 and 2006, in addition to several others between four and seven.

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But ahead of this week’s Shriners Children’s Open, Cantlay said that seasons including five or more wins are becoming more and more unrealistic for today’s players.

“I doubt we’ll see double digits like Vijay and Tiger,” Cantlay said. “I’d be shocked if we saw anybody come close to having as many five-win seasons as Tiger. I think he had six, seven or eight or something like that, which is remarkable, obviously.

“I think we’re just seeing guys play also more go-for-broke golf, so if you have more guys in the field playing go-for-broke golf, inevitably one of them will execute all week,” he continued. “So when a guy that’s good gets hot, it’s really hard to beat him. In the past I feel like when I think about when I’ve talked with Jack Nicklaus about how he played golf tournaments, he did not play go-for-broke golf, so he was able to wear people out. That type of golf doesn’t win golf tournaments these days as much as it used to.”

Cantlay tees off this week as the betting favorite at the Shriners, hoping to add to his eight-win career tally.

Golf.com Editor

As a four-year member of Columbia’s inaugural class of female varsity golfers, Jessica can out-birdie everyone on the masthead. She can out-hustle them in the office, too, where she’s primarily responsible for producing both print and online features, and overseeing major special projects, such as GOLF’s inaugural Style Is­sue, which debuted in February 2018. Her origi­nal interview series, “A Round With,” debuted in November of 2015, and appeared in both in the magazine and in video form on GOLF.com.

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