Patrick Cantlay was left humbled by the great Tiger Woods, after the American opened up on winning the PGA Tour’s Player of The Year award back in 2021.

Cantlay enjoyed his back season to date that year, winning three Tour events as well as the FedEx Cup title.

In doing so, the American received the recognition of his fellow players too, after being voted Player of The Year by his peers at the end of the campaign.

The latest recipient of the prize was world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler, who made it back-to-back wins, pipping LIV Golf’s latest signing Jon Rahm and current FedEx Cup champion Viktor Hovland for 2023.

On the back of Scheffler’s acceptance, Cantlay reminisced about his win back in 2021, opening up on a encounter with Woods, who has 11 Player of The Year awards to his name.

Ahead of this week’s Sentry Tournament, Cantlay said: “I’ll tell you a story.

“I went over to Tiger’s house, I think to talk Ryder Cup after I had won Player of the Year [back in 2021], and it felt like a big deal to me at the time that I had got a Player of the Year, and they give you this little Jack Nicklaus bronze trophy.

“So we’re walking through Tiger’s house and we’re in the basement and he’s got like, 11 of ’em lined up right next to each other all in the corner of the basement — boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.” Jokingly, Cantlay then told Woods he was ‘catching up’ following his 2021 win, but he was soon shot down by the 15-time major winner.

“I go, ‘Hey, I’m catching up,’” Cantlay added. “And he looked at me and he goes, ‘You got a lot of work to do.’” The cutting comment summed up Woods’ competitive edge even at this stage – and reminded Cantlay exactly how much the icon has achieved.

In winning the 2023 award, Scheffler was able to equal one of Woods’ great records, becoming the first player since the 48-year-old to win back-to-back Player of The Year titles.

There was some controversy surrounding the vote though, with LIV’s latest coup, Rahm missing out on the award despite winning four times including last April’s Masters. Scheffler too enjoyed a great year, maintaining his spot at the top of the world rankings and winning both the Waste Management Phoenix Open and Hero World Challenge in 2023.

Consistency was key for the world No. 1, who finished outside the top-20 just three times throughout the year, and he believes this is what earned him the majority of the vote from his peers. “I just think it depends on what the guys kind of looked at for their vote,” he responded when asked if he was surprised by the vote at The Sentry.

“I guess this year they really kind of appreciated my consistency. Like I said, I was very proud of that. The way I played the entire year, I think I maybe only had one or two starts that were — that I would categorise as not great, but other than that I had a lot of starts where I just played really solid golf and to do that for an entire season out here I think is very difficult. I’m very proud of that aspect of my game.”

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Source: USA Today