Hollywood script: Patrick Cantlay, Xander Schauffele to play for The Genesis Invitational title

PACIFIC PALISADES, Calif. – They work so well as a team that Patrick Cantlay and Xander Schauffele have been inseparable at the Ryder Cup, Presidents Cup and Zurich Classic of New Orleans. Heck, Schauffele was even the best man in Cantlay’s wedding.

Now, though, circumstances have conspired to pit them against each other at The Genesis Invitational, where Cantlay (third-round 70, 14-under) and a surging Schauffele (65, two back) will be trying to beat each other in the final round at The Riviera Country Club on Sunday.

“It’s a comfortable pairing,” Cantlay said with a wry smile. Or was it Schauffele? (Checks transcripts.) In fact, each player said that – they’ve even started to sound the same.

Will Zalatoris, who had major back surgery last year, shot 65 to also reach 12 under, two back. Ties trigger the first in, last out rule, and Schauffele signed his card first, ergo he’ll get Cantlay in the final group. That’s only fitting for Hollywood, where the narrative is the thing.

Splitting up a duo for the purposes of one-on-one competition can make for an odd encounter, most notably when sisters Venus and Serena Williams wound up on either side of the net. But Schauffele, who got off to a slow start this week but is coming off rounds of 66-65, said he and Cantlay are used to being adversaries as well as allies.

Twice they’ve faced off in Sunday’s final tee time, with Schauffele winning the 2022 Travelers Championship and Cantlay evening the score at the BMW Championship later that year.

“We know where we stand and how we compete against each other,” Schauffele said.

Such has been the case since Fred Couples suggested they play together at the 2019 Presidents Cup at Royal Melbourne, where the duo won two and lost two in a U.S. Team win. Cantlay said he and Schauffele hadn’t spent much time together until then; they’ve been inseparable since and have become perhaps the most obvious U.S. pairing in every biennial team competition.

“We really became friends that week in Australia,” said Cantlay, who began Saturday with a five-shot lead but mostly treaded water in Round 3. “He moved to Jupiter within the last year, and so we've been spending more time together. He's just a real close friend of mine.”

Added Schauffele, when asked about the softspoken leader’s most admirable trait, “He's very thoughtful. He comes across really quiet at times, but he's a really thoughtful friend and he does reach out to me when we're on different sides of the coast just to check in and see how I'm doing.

“People don't really know him very well,” Schauffele added, “but he's a good friend when it comes to things like that.”

Which isn’t to say they don’t want to beat each other; Cantlay said he expected some needle to be applied Sunday – most likely inside jokes that would be lost on anyone else. Each would love to win not least because each claims Southern California roots, Cantlay having grown up in Long Beach and attended UCLA, Schauffele being a product of San Diego and San Diego State.

What’s more, given that they traded titles at the Travelers and BMW, The Genesis Invitational could turn into a sort of Cantlay-Schauffele rubber match.

Granted, Zalatoris, whose lone TOUR title came at the 2022 FedEx St. Jude Championship, could have something to say about that, being only two back. So could Luke List (68), who’s three off the lead, or Jason Day (69) or Harris English (65), each of whom is four behind.

But you can bet that Cantlay and Schauffele will be doing their best to ensure that the winner comes out of Sunday’s final pairing, set to tee off at 2:15 p.m. ET.

Neither player has won a major, but each has distinguished himself on the game’s biggest stages. Schauffele won the 2020 Olympic gold medal, Cantlay won the 2021 FedExCup, and together they won the two-man Zurich Classic of New Orleans in 2022.

Cantlay has more PGA TOUR titles, eight to seven. After racking up a combined five victories two seasons ago – three for Schauffele, two for Cantlay – neither man won last season.

If they play how they usually play together, that’s likely to change at Riviera on Sunday.