Patrick Cantlay: The Latest Amateur to Be Labeled Can't Miss.

Not since Phil Mickelson donned the Northern Telecom conquistador helmet do we remember an amateur golfer that has shown a propensity to play with the big boys. 

Enter Patrick Cantlay, the newest amateur labeled the PGA TOUR's next can't miss kid.  Not since Hermie in the Summer of 42 has someone enjoyed such a coming of age.  

And his aw-shucks approach has left PGA TOUR players nodding their approval.  Players like John Mallinger and John Merrick claim that he has taken some coin from their pocket back in Long Beach, California at Virginia Country Club.  Both Mallinger and Merrick mentored Cantlay.

The Jack Nicklaus award winner never expected to be low amateur at the U.S. Open.  Then, as if nobody told him he really shouldn't be doing this well, he spent four days in Hartford displaying his talent at the Travelers PGA TOUR stop.  After an opening round 67, he fired a course-record ten-under 60...as in six-zero.  

Chatter switched quickly to the San Diego flash from 1991.  A PGA Tour win as an amateur nets zero dollars, but a two-year exemption.  And that is a mind wrenching decision for a young man.

Or is it?  Cantlay refuses to accelerate his student-athlete plan.  No pace of play warning here.  "I want to finish my degree," said Cantlay.  He wants to pull an Andrew Luck and stay in school. He is a rising sophomore.  This is not the NBA, where freshman display their March talent and walk. 

A college kid with no conscience.  Being low amateur at a U.S. Open will open a few courtesy car doors.  He can't order a beer, but he can drive his own ambition and make decisons that will be the best for his future.  Oh, wait, that is not something the golfing world can stomach.  At least not the golf media.

Just as the U.S. Open was determined to identify the best player at Congressional (it did!), Cantlay was the player standing next to Rory Mcllroy on the 18th at Congressional as the sun was ebbing down in Bethesda.  Not senior Russell Henley from Georgia, not Peter Uihlein from Oklahoma State.  No sir - just a tweezer-bean kid from the West Coast that works with a golf teacher that can out-surf Hank Haney, Randy Smith and Sean Foley.  

His name is Jamie Mulligan, and Cantlay's big brothers are all on tour - guys like Merrick, Mallinger, Peter Tomasulo and Paul Goydos. Mulligan does not turn out cookie cutter players.  He actually takes each players strengths, throws in a hint of his own delivery, like, "the golf swing is not a destination, but a journey," and then sends them to the first tee. 

Cantlay was an under-recruited graduate from Servite High School in Anaheim, Calif. just a year ago. Even after being named Golfweek’s College Player of the Year this season, he was an unknown quantity to much of the golf world. 

But it is really the definition that the golf world fumbles.  Is it can't miss, kid, as in - you better not miss, because you're about to fall into golfing purgatory?  Or, is it, can't miss kid - you have veins of ice, game, and a Crenshaw-like putting stroke?  He was not even born when Lefty claimed the Northern Telecom Open in 1991.  Yet, it's been that long since we have had an amateur that we have wanted to usher along.  

Cantlay is sneaky long off the tee and sneaking along, and to him - that's just fine.