Patrick Cantlay made a long day for Brooks Koepka even longer during Sunday’s final round of the 2023 Masters Tournament at Augusta National Golf Club.
Cantlay, who played in the penultimate pairing with Viktor Hovland, reinforced his reputation as a slow player by taking nearly five hours to play the final 18 holes on what already was a Sunday marathon.
Koepka, who played behind Cantlay and Hovland alongside the tournament’s ultimate champion Jon Rahm, was irked by the pace of play in front of him. He and Rahm routinely had to wait to hit their shots because of Cantlay. And Koepka, who was never able to get in a rhythm after three frontside bogies, expressed his frustrations after concluding the tournament 8-under 280 and in a tie for second.
“Yeah, the group in front of us was brutally slow,” Koepka told reporters after his final round of 3-over 75, per USA Today. “Jon went to the bathroom like seven times during the round, and we were still waiting.”
Koepka and Rahm weren’t the only ones perturbed by Cantlay, though. Multiple times in the round, specifically on the par-4 seventh hole and par-5 13th hole, Hovland didn’t wait for Cantlay and instead walked ahead of his playing partner, which certainly is uncommon in the professional ranks.
Cantlay shot a 3-over 75 in his final round and finished tied for 14th place at 3-under 285. Hovland shot a 2-over 74 in the final round and tied for seventh at 6-under 282.
