Jon Rahm’s brilliance and the emergence of Xander Schauffele at the Tour Championship have many forgetting the year had by Patrick Cantlay, writes WADE PRETORIUS.
While ineligible for the PGA Tour’s Rookie of the Year title, Jon Rahm easily wrapped up the same award on the European Tour after his best season as a (not so) budding professional. Rahm burst onto the scene with a win at the Farmers Insurance Open in January (where he holed a 60-foot eagle putt on the last to win) and also claimed the Dubai Duty Free Irish Open, storming to a six-stroke victory with his 24 under par total of 264 being the lowest in the tournament’s history.
Awarded the Rookie title before the season-ending DP World Tour title, the Spaniard won that too holding off Justin Rose, Dylan Frittelli and Dean Burmester. He spent a large part of the year inside the top 10 and is going to be a major force for many years to come.
Similarly expectations have been placed on the shoulders of Xander Schauffele. He took advantage of Rahm’s ineligibility and won the PGA Tour’s Rookie title after he won The Greenbrier Classic, finished T5 at the U.S. Open at Erin Hills in his first major championship start before holding off Justin Thomas to win the TOUR Championship becoming the first rookie to do so. He finished third in the FedExCup to ensure there were no doubts about his abilities.
However, neither are in contention for Compleat Golfer’s ‘Under the Radar’ award – that’s a shootout between Julian Suri and Patrick Cantlay. Both are Americans but Suri is a European Challenge Tour graduate while Cantlay is a PGA Tour member.
Suri may still be an unknown but not for much longer. He rose 1079 places to sit 63rd in the world in eight months and won on both the Challenge Tour and the European Tour and earned €846 989 in the process. But still there was one player with a year even better than that.
Cantlay climbed from 1866 in the world rankings at the start of 2017 to 38 at the end of it – just the 1828 place rise. No player has ever jumped that high in a calendar year.
But what makes his story so compelling? Yes, he was always predicted to be in the same class as Jordan Spieth and Justin Thomas but after a bright start, he missed 27 months of competitive golf.
He won the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open in Texas for his first title after years spent suffering a back injury and tragedy. In February 2016, he was 10 feet away when his childhood bestfriend and caddie Chris Roth was killed in a hit and run.
