ATLANTA — The system is one Patrick Cantlaystill dislikes, one that saw him earn $15 million on Sunday as the PGA Tour’s season-long champion despite not shooting the lowest 72-hole score at the Tour Championship.
No matter.
Cantlay followed the format, and he hit the big shots when necessary to hold off Jon Rahm and win the FedEx Cup title at East Lake while also stamping himself a big-time player over the past few weeks.
After dispatching Bryson DeChambeau at the BMW Championship in a six-hole playoff a week ago, Cantlay stayed on form and led the strokes-adjusted Tour Championship from the moment he teed off on Thursday until he tapped in his winning birdie putt on Sunday.
And it brought to full circle a 10-year journey that saw him as a hotshot college player at UCLA and top-ranked amateur in the country to a low point when a back injury kept him from playing golf for two years. Now, here he is, beating the best players in the game while planting himself among them.
“The biggest thing is it’s given me great perspective,” said Cantlay, 29, who is ranked fourth in the world. “I think for a long time, everything just went great. Growing up, I felt like I got better and better in golf and life got better and better, and then it got as bad as it could have been. I felt as low as it could have been for a little while.
“Coming out on the other side of that, I feel like I am a better person having gone through those dark days. But it gives me great perspective, and it makes me very grateful to be in the position I’m in, because it wasn’t always a sure thing. I was very close to going back to school and putting golf behind me.”
“And so, I’m just very grateful to be where I am,” he added, “and I’m so satisfied with all the hard work paying off.”
Cantlay seemingly had the tournament secured when he birdied the 16th hole to take a two-shot lead over Rahm. Then Cantlay nearly gave it all back with an approach over the green at the 17th, a chip shot that came up short and a testy 5-footer for bogey to maintain a one-shot advantage.
And when Rahm knocked his second shot on the green at the par-5 18th, setting up an eagle opportunity, Cantlay followed — having hit a 361-yard drive — with a 6-iron to 11 feet. That set up a two-putt birdie and a one-shot victory.
It meant a $15 million payday for Cantlay from the FedEx Cup bonus fund, with Rahm getting $5 million.
“Felt like a huge win, and it was,” Cantlay said. “I played great [Sunday]. I kept telling myself to focus and lock in, and I did a great job of that today.”
Cantlay had no choice if he was to leave East Lake with the title. Rahm posed an intimidating presence as he played the final three rounds with Cantaly, doing his best to overcome a four-shot deficit at the start of the week that was part of the unique FedEx Cup formula, in which players began via staggered scoring related to their position in the points race.
The reigning U.S. Open champion shot 68 on Sunday without a bogey but simply could not get enough birdie putts to drop to ever forge a tie. And when it looked like things might turn at the par-4 17th, Cantlay delivered again.
“Patrick played great golf, and he was four shots ahead of me (at the start of the tournament). Even though I might have been the better man over the week, he earned it,” Rahm said. “He played amazing. That up-and-down after missing [the first chip on] 17, the second shot from 18 to almost make it is even more impressive.
“I think you can say he won this. He played amazing golf.”
Rahm still had a good payday, leaving with $5 million.
“It felt really weird to have this feeling of disappointment of not winning on a day you are making $5-million,” Rahm said.
Both Cantlay and Rahm have pointed out flaws with the FedEx system. They both have made clear their feelings about its deficiencies. And yet, they are the ones who provided the drama, as no one else could get close.
Rahm was unaware at the time that he actually tied Kevin Na for the lowest 72-hole total, shooting 14 under par. Xander Schauffele was next at 12 under and Cantlay was tied at 11 under, along with Viktor Hovland and Justin Thomas.
“I think this format is less confusing. But I don’t think it’s a good format,” Rahm said. “I dislike the fact that we no longer have a Tour Champion. So I dislike the fact that no one knows, when they look at the leaderboard, who shot the lowest round this week.”
All players knew the rules going in, however, and Cantlay managed to protect his two-shot advantage starting off the entire week. That’s a different kind of pressure, one he said was difficult to process.
The last three rounds, especially, were intense as both Cantlay and Rahm put on an impressive show, one that would be fun if it were reprised in three weeks at the Ryder Cup, where Cantlay is suddenly looking like the top American player and Rahm will undoubtedly be among those counted on the most for Europe.
It was the fourth victory of the season for Cantlay, who captured the Zozo Championship last October, the Memorial Tournament in June, the BMW and the Tour Championship.
At the Zozo, Cantlay held off Thomas and Rahm. He beat Collin Morikawa in a playoff at the Memorial — after Rahm withdrew due to a positive COVID-19 test when leading by six shots after 54 holes. Last week at the BMW, Cantlay continually made putts to stay alive, finally winning with a birdie putt to dispatch DeChambeau on the sixth extra hole.
“I wouldn’t necessarily call him underrated, but I might call him under-appreciated,” said Stewart Cink. “Patrick just doesn’t have any one thing that stands out, but that’s what makes him such a great player is that he doesn’t have anything that is a weakness either.
“He’s plenty long. He hits plenty of fairways. He’s got a massive short game. He’s tough under the gun and he’s a great putter. I mean, I know golf pretty well. You tell me if I’m missing anything here. He’s just the whole package.”
ESPN baseball reporter. Covered the Washington Wizards from 2014 to 2016 and the Washington Nationals from 2016 to 2018 for The Washington Post before covering the Los Angeles Dodgers and MLB for the Los Angeles Times from 2018 to 2024.
NEW YORK — Giancarlo Stanton, one of the first known adopters of the torpedo bat, declined Tuesday to say whether he believes using it last season caused the tendon ailments in both elbows that forced him to begin this season on the injured list.
Last month, Stanton alluded to “bat adjustments” he made last season as a possible reason for the epicondylitis, commonly known as tennis elbow, he’s dealing with.
“You’re not going to get the story you’re looking for,” Stanton said. “So, if that’s what you guys want, that ain’t going to happen.”
Stanton said he will continue using the torpedo bat when he returns from injury. The 35-year-old New York Yankees slugger, who has undergone multiple rounds of platelet-rich plasma injections to treat his elbows, shared during spring training that season-ending surgery on both elbows was a possibility. But he has progressed enough to recently begin hitting off a Trajekt — a pitching robot that simulates any pitcher’s windup, arm angle and arsenal. However, he still wouldn’t define his return as “close.”
He said he will first have to go on a minor league rehab assignment at an unknown date for an unknown period. It won’t start in the next week, he added.
“This is very unique,” Stanton said. “I definitely haven’t missed a full spring before. So, it just depends on my timing, really, how fast I get to feel comfortable in the box versus live pitching.”
While the craze of the torpedo bat (also known as the bowling pin bat) has swept the baseball world since it was revealed Saturday — while the Yankees were blasting nine home runs against the Milwaukee Brewers — that a few members of the Yankees were using one, the modified bat already had quietly spread throughout the majors in 2024. Both Stanton and former Yankees catcher Jose Trevino, now with the Cincinnati Reds, were among players who used the bats last season after being introduced to the concept by Aaron Leanhardt, an MIT-educated physicist and former minor league hitting coordinator for the organization.
Stanton explained he has changed bats before. He said he has usually adjusted the length. Sometimes, he opts for lighter bats at the end of the long season. In the past, when knuckleballers were more common in the majors, he’d opt for heavier lumber.
Last year, he said he simply chose his usual bat but with a different barrel after experimenting with a few models.
“I mean, it makes a lot of sense,” Stanton said. “But it’s, like, why hasn’t anyone thought of it in 100-plus years? So, it’s explained simply and then you try it and as long as it’s comfortable in your hands [it works]. We’re creatures of habit, so the bat’s got to feel kind of like a glove or an extension of your arm.”
Stanton went on to lead the majors with an average bat velocity of 81.2 mph — nearly 3 mph ahead of the competition. He had a rebound, but not spectacular, regular season in which he batted .233 with 27 home runs and a .773 OPS before clubbing seven home runs in 14 playoff games.
“It’s not like [it was] unreal all of a sudden for me,” Stanton said.
Yankees manager Aaron Boone described the torpedo bats “as the evolution of equipment” comparable to getting fitted for new golf clubs. He said the organization is not pushing players to use them and insisted the science is more complicated than just picking a bat with a different barrel.
“There’s a lot more to it than, ‘I’ll take the torpedo bat on the shelf over there — 34 [inches], 32 [ounces],'” Boone said. “Our guys are way more invested in it than that. And really personalized, really work with our players in creating this stuff. But it’s equipment evolving.”
As players around the majors order torpedo bats in droves after the Yankees’ barrage over the weekend — they clubbed a record-tying 13 homers in two games against the Brewers — Boone alluded to the notion that, though everyone is aware of the concept, not every organization can optimize its usage.
“You’re trying to just, where you can on the margins, move the needle a little bit,” Boone said. “And that’s really all you’re going to do. I don’t think this is some revelation to where we’re going to be; it’s not related to the weekend that we had, for example. Like, I don’t think it’s that. Maybe in some cases, for some players, it may help them incrementally. That’s how I view it.”
Eovaldi struck out eight and walked none in his fifth career complete game. The right-hander threw 99 pitches, 70 for strikes.
It was Eovaldi’s first shutout since April 29, 2023, against the Yankees and just the third of his career. He became the first Ranger with multiple career shutouts with no walks in the past 30 seasons, according to ESPN Research.
“I feel like, by the fifth or sixth inning, that my pitch count was down, and I feel like we had a really good game plan going into it,” Eovaldi said in his on-field postgame interview on Victory+. “I thought [Texas catcher Kyle Higashioka] called a great game. We were on the same page throughout the entire game.”
In the first inning, Wyatt Langford homered for Texas against Carson Spiers (0-1), and that proved to be all Eovaldi needed. A day after Cincinnati collected 14 hits in a 14-3 victory in the series opener, Eovaldi (1-0) silenced the lineup.
“We needed it, these bats are still quiet,” Texas manager Bruce Bochy said of his starter’s outing. “It took a well-pitched game like that. What a game.”
The Reds put the tying run on second with two out in the ninth, but Eovaldi retired Elly De La Cruz on a grounder to first.
“He’s as good as I have seen as far as a pitcher performing under pressure,” Bochy said. “He is so good. He’s a pro out there. He wants to be out there.”
Eovaldi retired his first 12 batters, including five straight strikeouts during one stretch. Gavin Lux hit a leadoff single in the fifth for Cincinnati’s first baserunner.
“I think it was the first-pitch strikes,” Eovaldi said, when asked what made him so efficient. “But also, the off-speed pitches. I was able to get some quick outs, and I didn’t really have many deep counts. … And not walking guys helps.”
Spiers gave up three hits in six innings in his season debut. He struck out five and walked two for the Reds, who fell to 2-3.
The Rangers moved to 4-2, and Langford has been at the center of it all. He now has two home runs in six games to begin the season. In 2024, it took him until the 29th game of the season to homer for the first time. Langford hit 16 homers in 134 games last season during his rookie year.
Eli Lederman covers college football and recruiting for ESPN.com. He joined ESPN in 2024 after covering the University of Oklahoma for Sellout Crowd and the Tulsa World.
USC secured the commitment of former Oregon defensive tackle pledge Tomuhini Topui on Tuesday, a source told ESPN, handing the Trojans their latest recruiting victory in the 2026 cycle over the Big Ten rival Ducks.
Topui, ESPN’s No. 3 defensive tackle and No. 72 overall recruit in the 2026 class, spent five and half months committed to Oregon before pulling his pledge from the program on March 27. Topui attended USC’s initial spring camp practice that afternoon, and seven days later the 6-foot-4, 295-pound defender gave the Trojans his pledge to become the sixth ESPN 300 defender in the program’s 2026 class.
Topui’s commitment gives USC its 10th ESPN 300 pledge this cycle — more than any other program nationally — and pulls a fourth top-100 recruit into the impressive defensive class the Trojans are building this spring. Alongside Topui, USC’s defensive class includes in-state cornerbacks R.J. Sermons (No. 26 in ESPN Junior 300) and Brandon Lockhart (No. 77); four-star outside linebacker Xavier Griffin (No. 27) out of Gainesville, Georgia; and two more defensive line pledges between Jaimeon Winfield (No. 143) and Simote Katoanga (No. 174).
The Trojans are working to reestablish their local recruiting presence in the 2026 class under newly hired general manager Chad Bowden. Topui not only gives the Trojans their 11th in-state commit in the cycle, but his pledge represents a potentially important step toward revamping the program’s pipeline to perennial local powerhouse Mater Dei High School, too.
Topui will enter his senior season this fall at Mater Dei, the program that has produced a long line of USC stars including Matt Leinart, Matt Barkley and Amon-Ra St. Brown. However, if Topui ultimately signs with the program later this year, he’ll mark the Trojans’ first Mater Dei signee since the 2022 cycle, when USC pulled three top-300 prospects — Domani Jackson, Raleek Brown and C.J. Williams — from the high school program based in Santa Ana, California.
Topui’s flip to the Trojans also adds another layer to a recruiting rivalry rekindling between USC and Oregon in the 2026 cycle.
Tuesday’s commitment comes less than two months after coach Lincoln Riley and the Trojans flipped four-star Oregon quarterback pledge Jonas Williams, ESPN’s No. 2 dual-threat quarterback in 2026. USC is expected to continue targeting several Ducks commits this spring, including four-star offensive tackle Kodi Greene, another top prospect out of Mater Dei.