Patrick Cantlay battles illness, surrenders 54-hole lead at The Genesis
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Finishes T4 from final group at Riviera, as does good friend Xander Schauffele
Patrick Cantlay didn’t have his best stuff Sunday at The Genesis Invitational. After taking a two-stroke lead through 54 holes at The Riviera Country Club, Cantlay closed in 1-over 72 to finish four back of winner Hideki Matsuyama, who fired a scintillating 9-under 62.
Other factors were perhaps in play, though, as Cantlay struggled to find a rhythm Sunday while playing in the final group at Riviera alongside close friend Xander Schauffele, who shot 70 to share fourth place with Cantlay and Adam Hadwin.
Following the final round of The Genesis, Golf Channel analyst Johnson Wagner shared that Cantlay woke up Sunday with a temperature exceeding 100 degrees and some sort of illness, per Cantlay’s coach Jamie Mulligan.
Cantlay didn’t meet the media after the final round, saying he was feeling under the weather.
Cantlay, 31, started fast at The Genesis with rounds of 64-65, building a five-stroke lead into the weekend. He followed with a third-round 70 to put the lead at two strokes into Sunday’s final round at the famed Riviera.
Sunday was a different story, though, for the UCLA alum. Cantlay failed to birdie the par-5 first hole, Riviera’s easiest hole which plays to nearly a par 4, and he played the front nine with nine straight pars. He rebounded from a bogey at the short par-4 10th with a birdie at the par-5 11th, but two more bogeys at Nos. 13 and 15 sealed his fate, as Matsuyama continued to rack up birdies.
Cantlay drained a 51-foot birdie at the par-4 18th, permitting a wry smile, to join his playing partner Schauffele at 13-under 271.
Hideki Matsuyama makes six-shot comeback for historic win at Genesis
“Once I saw Hideki finishing at 17-under, it was a bit of a deflator, I'm sure for the rest of the field,” Schauffele said afterward. “But hats off to him, it's incredible. He's done it a few times now, shooting lights out on Sunday.
“As soon as I felt like I was getting in some good flow, I stopped working on what I was working on and I think I reverted back to some old stuff that isn't very good, hence some of those bad shots.”