‘There Are So Many Slow Guys’ - Pro Defends Patrick Cantlay

The final round of an enthralling Masters wasn’t without controversy. As Jon Rahm and Brooks Koepka battled it out for the title, they were kept waiting at various points by the group in front comprising Patrick Cantlay and Viktor Hovland.

Many have suggested the American, rather than the Norwegian, had been largely to blame. However, Byeong Hun An has come to Cantlay's defence, pointing out that he is far from the only player who could be accused of taking too long over his shots.

The 31-year-old wrote on Twitter: “It’s not fair for Cantlay to take all the blame for slow play because there are many slow guys who is just not on tv. It’s hard to tell them to hurry up if they are over the ball and not firing the trigger but i don’t get how it takes more than 45secs to choose what club to hit.”

After the Augusta National tournament, Koepka in particular was critical of the pace of play, saying: “The group in front of us were brutally slow. Jon [Rahm] went to the bathroom like seven times during the round and we were still waiting”.

Cantlay responded to the slow play criticism before last week’s RBC Heritage. The world No.5 said: “Yeah, I mean, we finished the first hole, and the group in front of us was on the second tee when we walked up to the second tee, and we waited all day on pretty much every shot. We waited in 15 fairway, we waited in 18 fairway. I imagine it was slow for everyone.”

That appeared to back up the South Korean’s point that the number of players taking their time would have been greater than the TV cameras suggested. Later, the 2015 BMW PGA champion continued the discussion, responding to one follower: “I average 31 seconds per a shot and I’m 250 out of 269 players. Which means there are 19 players who play faster than me. Is 45 seconds enough? Definitely. Sometimes I wonder what they have in the yardage book that they stare at for ages”.

The pace of play issue is one that frequently bubbles to the surface. Indeed, just a few weeks before The Masters it proved a big talking point at The Players Championship after it was reported that the two ball of Rory McIlroy and Scottie Scheffler took over an hour to play three holes, which led to four groups playing the par 5 11th at TPC Sawgrass.

With the issue sure to resurface at some point, the World No.143 was adamant about one thing, though – it’s up to the rules officials to address. When it was suggested he could try to get slower players to hurry up, he responded: “We don’t have to tell them to hurry the f*** up. Rules officials do. Do u think they are going to listen when we tell them.”

An teams up with SH Kim in this week’s Zurich Classic of New Orleans at TPC Louisiana, where Cantlay and Xander Schauffele are defending their title.