Patrick Cantlay and Xander Schauffele marched into New Orleans with a chip on their shoulders and waltzed out of the Big Easy as PGA Tour winners for the first time this season.
Cantlay and Schauffele combined to shoot even-par 72 at TPC Louisiana in the alternate-shot format used in the final round of the Zurich Classic of New Orleans and shattered the tournament’s 72-hole scoring record with a total of 29-under 259, two strokes ahead of the Team of Sam Burns and Billy Horschel.
“We definitely bring out the best in each other and we really enjoy being out here together and in a format like this,” Cantlay said, “it’s the best.”
Cantlay, the reigning FedEx Cup champion and PGA Tour Player of the Year, lost two sudden-death playoffs this year, including last week at the RBC Heritage. Cantlay became the first player to follow a playoff loss with a win – his seventh of his career – the following week since Dustin Johnson in 2020 at the Tour Championship. Schauffele, who notched his fifth Tour title, had claimed the Olympic gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics in August, but had gone more than 1,000 days since winning an official Tour title and recorded eight runner-up finishes since his last win at the 2019 Sentry Tournament of Champions.
The winning duo went wire-to-wire, starting with a tournament record 13-under 59 in the best ball format Thursday, shooting 68 in foursomes on Friday and building a five-stroke lead after combining to birdie eight of the final nine holes in the best-ball format on Saturday en route to shooting the low score of the third round, a 12-under 60.
In the final round, Cantlay and Schauffele opened with six straight pars until Cantlay drilled his second shot at the par-5 seventh from 254 yards to 8 feet and Schauffele’s putt circled the hole for eagle. The partners celebrated by knocking knuckles, but after Cantlay lipped out a birdie putt at eight that could have stretched the lead to six strokes, the dynamic duo made back-to-back bogeys at the ninth and 10th holes, which amounted to one more bogey than they had made in the first 62 holes of the tournament. Their commanding lead was trimmed to one stroke because Burns and Horschel combined for five birdies in their first 11 holes. But the birdies dried out for the eventual runner-ups who settled for shooting 4-under 68.
“Once in a while when you feel good and you’re trying to chase down some leaders, but sometimes you just can’t make it happen, and that’s what it was for us on the last six holes,” Burns said.
A short birdie putt at the par-5 11th extended the lead for Cantlay and Schauffele back to two as they improved to 30 under and a stretch of pars until a final-hole bogey were good enough to claim the title and the silver belt buckles awarded to the champions.
As their friendship has grown so has their place as two of the top American pros. They have paired successfully in the last Presidents Cup and Ryder Cup biennial team competitions and proved again that they could be a tandem in international competition for the next decade. Cantlay made the point that it helps to gel with your partner, and it doesn’t hurt that they excelled in foursomes, a format where the Americans traditionally have struggled.
“It feels like every shot you hit is more important because it is,” Cantlay said of the alternate-shot format. “So, I think foursomes is a lot more emotional in that way, and the fact that Xander and I are really good friends, and so I know he’s trying as hard as he possibly can, and if he hits a bad shot, it’s just – that’s golf.”
Doc Redman and Sam Ryder shot 5-under 67 to finish third. Davis Riley and Will Zalatoris combined for the low round of the day, a 6-under 66, to finish in a tie for fourth place.
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