school
daze
Other collegiate golfers who’ll have
to refocus after play in pro events
“he knoWS
[hIS game]
needS To keep
geTTIng more
comple Te, and
college golf
IS par T of Tha T
experIence.”
—Jamie mulligan
peter uihlein,
oklahoma state
The 2010 U.S. Amateur champion
played in five PGA Tour events,
including the year’s first three
majors. He made three cuts and
will be playing in Q school on both
the PGA and European tours this
fall to gain experience before
turning pro next summer.
standing what the overall goals
are,” says ucla men’s coach
derek freeman. “he has things
to work on. he’s got goals for
himself that he still wants to
achieve in college and goals for
the team.”
an ncaa title is obviously
one. cantlay finished second
individually last June at karsten
creek gc when he missed an
18-foot eagle putt on the 18th
hole that would have forced a
playoff with eventual champion
John peterson of lsu, and the
bruins were bounced collec-
tively in the first round of match
play against duke.
growing up at virginia cc
under mulligan’s tutelage,
cantlay refined his game while
hitting balls beside profes-
sionals and future pros such
as cook, paul goydos, John
mallinger, John merrick and
peter tomasulo. through
Jordan spieth,
texas
Before he plays a round of college golf for the Longhorns, the
18-year-old has twice made the
cut at the PGA Tour’s HP Byron
Nelson Championship, finishing
T- 16 in 2010 and T-32 in 2011.
observation and osmosis he
gained an early understanding to what it would take to
succeed on the tour, among
the reasons cantlay comes
across as such a mature
player.
“they’re just very refined
overall,” cantlay says of the
typical tour pro. “their games
are just cleaner than regular
amateurs. they know their
games really well and play to
their strengths.”
month’s u.s. amateur at erin
hills gc would have been a
fitting way to cap the summer.
yet the disappointing runner-
up finish to kelly kraft, coming
on the heels of a similar fall in
the last match at the western
amateur, might prove more
helpful to him and the bruins
in the long run. it wasn’t just
the fact he was upset by kraft,
but the manner in which he
lost, making uncharacteristic
mistakes over the final holes,
that would spur him to seek
further improvement by taking
out his frustrations on his col-
lege foes.
