BMW CHAMPIONSHIP

August 27, 2021

Patrick Cantlay

Caves Valley Golf Club

Quick Quotes

Q. 63 today, kind of hard to believe that that wasn't the best score out there. Walk us through what allowed you to have a great day today?

PATRICK CANTLAY: Yeah, I got the putter going on the back nine and made a bunch of birdies, and today I hit it better all the way through and also putted really well. Yeah, I thought I played great. 9-under, I'm very pleased, but obviously there was lower than that out there today.

Q. Did you know what was happening up ahead of you?

PATRICK CANTLAY: I knew he was playing really well and then I saw on the board that he eagled 16, and that was kind of all that I knew. It's so hot out there, I'm just trying to stay one shot at a time and just get to my ball.

Q. Your brother Nick shot a 62 yesterday in pre-qualifying; have you been chatting with him throughout that journey for him, and can you describe his game to us a bit?

PATRICK CANTLAY: Yeah, he played a couple rounds earlier in the year at like MacKenzie Q-school, I think, and played well and then faltered over the last couple days, so hopefully the good start keeps going this week.

He has been working -- he was kind of a late bloomer to golf. He kind of took up golf late in high school, and since then he's worked extremely hard, and I think all that hard work is paying off a little bit now.

Q. How much do you guys work on the game together?

PATRICK CANTLAY: I'm in Florida and he's in California, so I don't see him too often, but we play every once in a while when we're home, and definitely when I get out to Virginia Country Club where I grew up, I see him out there practicing, and he's always working on his game. He loves it.

Q. Is Nick a younger brother?

PATRICK CANTLAY: He is, yeah, three years younger.

Q. How does a younger brother with a guy like Patrick Cantlay who's won the Haskins and almost won the Am become a late bloomer to golf? Did he want to do something else?

PATRICK CANTLAY: Yeah, he didn't really fall in love with it until later in high school, but once he did, like I said, he just started working really hard, and he's gotten a little bit better every year, and that's kind of the key to this game is just working on your weak spots and trying to clean up little parts of your game that can get better and build on some confidence and get rolling.

Q. Did you have a falling-in-love moment that you can remember?

PATRICK CANTLAY: I don't remember a time when I didn't play golf. My parents got me into it very young. I'd say once I could really start to drive, like once I got to high school, a year or two into high school, I fell in love with it, just being able to go to the golf course after school. I remember being able to drive was a big deal because I wasn't dependent on somebody else to get me to go practice.

Q. I'm thinking drive off the tee --

PATRICK CANTLAY: Yeah, actually get to the golf course. I'd say definitely in high school. We had a great high school golf team, and it was really fun. That's when I really started to take it more seriously.

Q. What kept you going in the years before high school when you maybe weren't as in love with the game?

PATRICK CANTLAY: I just remember I liked other sports better. I liked the team aspect and I liked -- I remember golf feeling boring because you'd go to the golf course and you'd be at the golf course for three, four, five, six hours and you'd be by yourself. I remember once getting to high school and having lots of guys around that I was playing with, that made it more fun. It made it easier to hang out at the golf course longer.

Q. What's the lowest score you've ever shot, whether it was a practice round or -- what's it like when you take it really deep? What's that feeling like when you're kind of nervous, like God, I have a chance to really do something crazy here?

PATRICK CANTLAY: Yeah, I've shot 60, once in practice, once on TOUR. I don't have that feeling like to protect or anything. I feel almost the opposite. I'm playing really well today, everything seems easy, just get me to the next shot, I'm going to figure it out, I'm playing great. I feel like the round can kind of build on itself. If you get a couple good things going, it feels like everything good is going to happen.