There’s no right way to celebrate a hole-in-one, but is there a wrong one? On Friday at the RBC Heritage, Patrick Cantlay put that theory to the test.
It was then, during Cantlay’s second round at Harbour Town, that he made an ace on the 7th hole, a 195-yard par-3, to move to 8-under on the tournament and a share of 4th place.
It was a perfect shot in every sense of the word, gorgeous from the second it left Cantlay’s clubface and remaining that way all the way until it plunked in the bottom of the cup for a surprising 1.
“You could not have scripted that better,” said one ESPN+ broadcaster.
“That was perfection,” said another.
But if Cantlay was shocked by the development, he hardly looked it back at the tee box. He raised his hand cautiously at first as the ball tumbled into the hole, sharing a gentle high-five and a fist-bump with his playing partners. As the crowd drowned him in cheers, he shared a sheepish grin.
It was hardly the kind of reaction we’re used to seeing from aces, even on the PGA Tour. By the time he left to retrieve his tee shot from the bottom of the hole, Cantlay’s face was blank again, a state it remained in for the rest of the day.
When Cantlay addressed reporters after the round, he was similarly understated about the moment.
“Yeah, it was just a perfect 6-iron number, a little into the wind, high 190s to the hole,” he said. “A one-yard cut that just came off perfect.”
Asked later if it was the third ace of his PGA Tour career, he answered succinctly.
“That’s right.”
The only emotion Cantlay showed about the whole interaction came a few minutes later, when a separate reporter asked him about the crowd’s response to the shot.
“Yeah, they went nuts,” he said. “There’s a bunch of fans around that 7th green, so it was nice to show off for them a little bit.”
Back on the internet, the response went over about as expected for Cantlay, who has found himself as the unwitting face of the slow-play problem after his Masters final round in front of Jon Rahm and Brooks Koepka.
In Hilton Head, Cantlay defended his pace-of-play at Augusta National, saying the pace during Sunday’s final round was “slow for everyone.” But that didn’t stop thousands of comments from flooding into his accounts about his pace of play on the course, nor did it keep a five-year-old video of his pre-swing routine from going viral on social media.
At the RBC Heritage, he enters the weekend in prime position to grab yet another top 10 in a high-profile event. That’s exciting news. But if his ace is any indication, we shouldn’t expect to see him over the moon about it.