Meet the home team: SoCal golfers at LACC for U.S. Open seek elusive majors win

Patrick Cantlay hits out of a bunker during the third round of the Arnold Palmer Invitational in Orlando, Fla., on March 4.

(John Raoux / Associated Press)

Birthplace: Long Beach
Current home: Jupiter, Fla.
U.S. Open finishes: 2011: T21; 2012: T41; 2018: T45; 2019: T21; 2020: T43; 2021: T15; 2022: T14
Career Earnings: $38,471,554

Cantlay seemed destined for Tour impact early on. He grew up playing at tony Virginia Country Club in Long Beach, starred at Anaheim Servite High and as a UCLA freshman swept the Haskins and Nicklaus awards as the best college player in the country.

He played in his first U.S. Open in 2011 as a 19-year-old amateur, finishing a respectable 21st, then shot 60 — the lowest score ever by an amateur — at the Travelers Championship. Cantlay went on to spend a record 55 consecutive weeks as the top-ranked amateur in the world.

Hardship followed. He fell to 41st at the 2012 U.S. Open and waited until 2018 for a third attempt, this time as a polished professional. Still, he stumbled to a ho-hum 45th, and in four years since hasn’t finished higher than 14th.

Cantlay was grief-stricken in 2016 when his best friend, caddie and high school teammate, Chris Roth, was killed in a hit-and-run accident in Newport Beach while Cantlay stood only a few feet away. Meanwhile, he was sidelined for an entire year because of stress fracture in his back. At times, he retreated into a private world.

“You don’t know how you’re going to react in that situation,” Cantlay said in 2017. “I’m standing there talking to the police officer and he says, ‘Do you want a towel or something to wipe yourself off?’ I was completely covered in blood. I didn’t realize it.

“Your importance level, your awareness of what is usually a big deal, was not a big deal to me. And I felt like that for months after.”

Cantlay did rebound. His career took off in 2018-19 and crested at the 2021 Tour Championship, when he won $15 million after holding off Jon Rahm by one stroke. He was PGA Tour player of the year.

Lately, though, Cantlay has been singled out for an odd reason: slow pace of play. It happened at the Masters in April, then again a week later at Harbour Town Golf Links in Hilton Head, S.C., where he finished third but was forced to fend off hecklers. His caddy, Matt Minister, flipped off a spectator who yelled, “Hurry up.”

That, of course, was captured on video and spread on Twitter.

For his part, Cantlay has handled it well. After making a hole-in-one at Harbour Town, he tweeted, “Playing faster!”