These two instructors helped Patrick Cantlay become one of the best on the PGA Tour

Cantlay has proven to be everything his two youth golf instructors envisioned him to be.

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For some golfers, geography more than anything brought them into contact with golf.

The home of World Golf Hall of Fame member Lee Trevino, for instance, was situated roughly 100 yards from the seventh fairway at the Dallas Athletic Club and a young Trevino used to walk through the course to get to school and sell balls he found in the thick rough back to the slicers who hit them there. The rest is history.

Patrick Cantlay didn’t grow up next to a golf course in Long Beach, California, but rather benefited from a country club membership and the members and staff who nurtured his love for the game.

Cantlay benefited greatly from having not one, but two able teachers at his disposal. Jamie Mulligan, who has been at Virginia Country Club since 2000 and has the title of CEO, knew Cantlay’s grandfather, who was a good golfer with a putting green in his backyard that he mowed himself, and played golf with him back in the 1980s when he originally was an assistant at Virginia CC. Cantlay’s dad became club champion there. Patrick was no more than eight years old when he developed an insatiable love of the game.

“I can’t think of a time when I didn’t play golf,” Cantlay says.

Special from the start

At junior clinics, Mulligan, the 2021 PGA of America Teacher and Coach of the Year, would ask his students to aim and throw a ball at a tree, and whoever was the closest to it would win a candy bar. A hundred kids would try to whip it as hard as they could like Nolan Ryan. Only Cantlay took a different tact.

2011 Frys.com Open
Patrick Cantlay watches his tee shot on the 15th hole during the first round of the 2011 Frys.com Open at CordeValle Golf Club in San Martin, California. (Photo: Allan Henry-USA TODAY Sports)

“Patrick rolled one that just followed the contours of the ground and kept going and rolled up right next to the root. What is that? You can’t coach that, right?” Mulligan says.

Cantlay played baseball and basketball, too, until high school when he realized his skills no longer were developing at the same pace as his teammates.

“I was short and skinny yet at the same time I was getting better compared to everyone else at golf,” he recalls. “It was an easy decision to focus on golf.”

Mulligan made sure Cantlay excelled at the core fundamentals while assistant pro Mike Miles, who played for a stint on the PGA Tour, introduced him to the importance of simply getting the golf ball in the hole. “He would put the ball in the trees and say, ‘What are we going to do from here?’ ” Cantlay recalls. “Between the two of them, I had a really good idea of what it would take to play on Tour from a game perspective.”

Mulligan credits Miles with pushing him towards a career in teaching based on the fact that he says he could never beat him; Miles ran into his own buzzsaw, one of Southern California’s finest, John Cook, who went on to win 11 times on the PGA Tour.

“That was a pretty good barometer,” Mulligan says. “I could beat everyone else but I couldn’t beat those guys.”

Mulligan and Miles became Cantlay’s Yin and Yang, longtime friends who made a pact: neither would step into the others bailiwick when it came to training Cantlay.

“We don’t speak the same language when it comes to the golf swing but we see the same thing in how they can be designed,” Miles says. “I came from a background of playing and Jamie had been an instructor already for years. I would teach him what I knew about playing and Jamie would take it from the other side of technique, training and coaching. That was 10 through high school. By that time, when Patrick got to UCLA he was a fully formed golfer at that point.”

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‘His drive is next gear’

Both recognized that Cantlay had the makings of a great champion and molded him into one of the best PGA Tour pros of the past five years.

“His drive is next gear and he had it at age 10,” Miles says. “He used to walk out on the first tee at Virginia at that age and challenge the old guys. He’d call them his soup group, guys in their late 60s, early 70s. He’d carry his bag and they’d be in their carts and he’d end up in the restaurant eating soup with them. He’s been an old country club player since he was 10. Maybe that’s why he looks a little sour.”

Cantlay also was blessed to grow up surrounded by Tour talent. Mulligan’s stable of pros who sought his wisdom included Cook and Paul Goydos and then a second generation of Tour caliber players in John Mallinger, John Merrick and Peter Tomasulo who treated him like a younger brother. As if by osmosis, Cantlay became a hybrid of all those golfers he looked up to, a blend of old school and new school. Miles agrees that Cantlay’s environment was invaluable to his growth as a player.

2023 U.S. Open
Patrick Cantlay plays a shot from a bunker on the 12th hole during the first round of the 2023 U.S. Open at Los Angeles Country Club. (Photo: Michael Madrid-USA TODAY Sports)

“He’s a question asker. He’ll ask 100 questions about a topic,” Miles says. “The way Patrick takes information in and absorbs it and distills it and implements it there probably wasn’t a better player to be in that environment and get more out of it.”

He beat Mulligan’s older students earlier than they expected him to do so. Tomasulo, who was at Cal before spending several years on the PGA Tour and Korn Ferry Tour, still remembers the first time Cantlay shot 30 on the back nine to beat him. “I was like, whoa, this kid’s getting really good,” Tomasulo says.

Indeed, when Cantlay enrolled at UCLA over USC, where his parents attended, he remembers thinking that he’d schooled way better golfers than he faced at the college level.

It was Cook that Cantlay looked up to the most. As a child prodigy, Cook took lessons from World Golf Hall of Fame member and former CBS Sports golf analyst Ken Venturi. He was a fountain of knowledge and never charged Cook or his father for a single lesson.

“My dad tried to pay him numerous times, but he refused,” Cook says. “He had only one stipulation. He said when you find someone who could use this help, it’s your duty to pass it on.”

Jamie Mulligan (left) and Mike Miles at The Yards in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida. (Adam Schupak/Golfweek)

And pass it on, he did. Cook showed Cantlay how to practice with a purpose, including to shag his own balls so he could see patterns instead of relying on TrackMan numbers.

“Being around the guys at the club did wonders for me,” Cantlay says. “Cookie, he’d tell me how he tried to hit the ball specific distances by flighting it certain levels. It gave me a better way to focus and kept me out of the trap of just beating balls. Being surrounded by those guys helped me strive to be better in ways that I didn’t even know were what I should be striving to do.”

In 2011, Cantlay qualified for the U.S. Open. It was his PGA Tour debut at Congressional Country Club, and Venturi, who won the national title there in 1964, was on hand to present the trophy. That week, Cantlay’s great promise was on display to a national audience as he became the first amateur to shoot par or better at the U.S. Open since Jack Nicklaus. For winning low amateur honors, Cantlay received a medal at the trophy presentation from none other than Venturi.

2011 U.S. Open
Amateur Patrick Cantlay with his caddie during the second round of the 111th U.S. Open at Congressional Country Club on June 17, 2011 in Bethesda, Maryland. (Photo: Andrew Redington/Getty Images)

“Ken was dressed to the nines in a blue blazer,” Mulligan remembers. “I said, ‘Patrick I want to introduce you to Ken Venturi. Mr. Venturi, this is…’ and he finished my sentence. He said, ‘I know this is Patrick Cantlay. What a lovely player you are and are going to become. I understand my friend John Cook along with Jamie have been mentoring you. I got this information from Ben Hogan and Byron Nelson and I gave it to John and it sounds like he’s passed it on to the right guy.’ ”

A week later, Cantlay held the 36-hole lead at the Travelers after shooting 60, the lowest score by an amateur. When a reporter asked Goydos if he thought Cantlay, who was just a sophomore at UCLA, should stay at school or turn pro, Goydos cracked, “I think he should get his masters.”

“Flukes can happen. I mean, I shot 59. But the 60 wasn’t a fluke. The fluke was that he didn’t win,” Goydos says all these years later. “I look at the player Patrick is now and I’m glad I’m on the Champions Tour.”

From two-time BMW Championship winner to 2020-21 FedEx Cup champion and perennial member of U.S. cup teams, Cantlay has proven to be everything Mulligan and Miles envisioned him to be, and the best may be yet to come. Winning candy bars, it turned out, was just the beginning for Cantlay.

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5 undrafted rookies on two-way deals who looked like steals during NBA Summer League

How did Adama Sanogo and Oscar Tshiebwe go undrafted?

Even though it might be too early to make any sweeping judgments about strong performances at NBA Summer League, some players have stood out.

As the NBA 2K24 Summer League tournament nears an end, we took a look at a few of the standout undrafted free agents who have already exceeded expectations set by their two-way contracts signed after the 2023 NBA Draft.

While you may be familiar with some names (e.g. Adama Sanogo and Oscar Oscar Tshiebwe) already, others may feel less familiar.

This story used AI-Powered statistics provided by the Stats Perform database.

Stay tuned for our third edition of this series, which will look at players who may have earned a two-way contract (e.g. Jelly Walker, KJ Williams, Nathan Mensah and more) based on their performances in Las Vegas as well.

RELATED: 5 second-round picks in 2023 who already look like draft steals during NBA Summer League

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Sooners squash the No. 22 TCU Horned Frogs 74-60 in regular season finale

Oklahoma avenges loss to No. 22 TCU as the Sooners cruise on Senior Day, 74-60.

The story of Oklahoma’s regular season is so complex. The only simple and easily understood part of the team is that they were wildly and frustratingly inconsistent. Another example is Saturday’s regular-season finale and Senior Day game against the No. 22 TCU Horned Frogs.

With their season depending solely on what they do in the Phillips 66 Big 12 tournament, Oklahoma wanted to give themselves some momentum heading into the following week. They did so in a big way and sent their seniors out in style, dismantling the same TCU team 74-60 the Sooners in February.

Before the game, the Sooners honored [autotag]Grant Sherfield[/autotag], Tanner and Jacob Groves, Jalen Hill, and Blake Seacat.

Hill has the option to return due to his COVID option.

Oklahoma was locked in from the start, going 6 of 6 from the field to jump out to a 14-2 lead before the first media timeout.

Stifling defense and white-hot shooting sent a message to TCU that this game would not be like the previous one played in Fort Worth.

Not only did Oklahoma come out hot and stay hot, the game never really got close enough for the Sooners to get worried. They answered TCU runs with their own and kept their foot on the gas until the final whistle.

By the under-eight media timeout, the Sooners’ lead had turned into a 29-12 affair.

In the first half, Grant Sherfield had eight points and Milos Uzan had seven to pace the Sooners. The Groves brothers combined for 14 points and five boards before the break.

The Sooners’ team defense was excellent. They held TCU to 37.7 percent from the field for the entire game.

Oklahoma came out from the locker room with a 38-21 lead, and despite a brief TCU surge, the Sooners maintained an 18-point lead by the under-12 timeout.

Tanner Groves continued to dominate and closed out his final home game with 23 points and 10 rebounds, including four offensive boards. Grant Sherfield, another senior, poured in 20 points on 7 of 15 shooting and was 4 of 7 from three. It was the first time all season both scored 20 in a game. Oklahoma coasted to the finish line, with the lead getting as high as 22 points. They put a bow on an up-and-down regular season with their sixth Quad 1 win.

Oklahoma will have a few days off to get mentally and physically ready, where winning four consecutive games to earn an automatic bid seems like their only shot at the NCAA Tournament.

Oklahoma (15-16 overall, 5-13 Big 12) finishes their regular season in last place and will either face WVU or Oklahoma State in the 7-10 matchup to kick off the Big 12 tournament.

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New pre-deadline 2023 mock has Boston Celtics drafting two forwards and a guard

Draft expert Jonathan Wasserman has put together a mock for the 2023 NBA draft that reflects the changes in the standings just ahead of the trade deadline.

NBA analysts and fans alike are fixated on the soon-to-come 2023 NBA trade deadline, as they ought to be even in the case of the Boston Celtics, who have as good of a case as any team to stand pat on Feb. 9 given their play so far this season has put them in pole position to win it all.

But draft experts are grinding away in their efforts to project what all 30 teams in the league will do with their respective draft assets, and the Celtics are no exception. To such an end, Bleacher Report draft expert Jonathan Wasserman has put together a mock for the 2023 NBA draft that reflects the changes in the standings just ahead of the trade deadline.

Let’s take a look at who he sees in green and white this summer via the trio of second round picks Boston has at their disposal in this draft.

Sooners on wrong end of blowout, downed by the TCU Horned Frogs 79-52

Oklahoma Sooners blown out by the TCU Horned Frogs in Fort Worth, 79-52.

Things aren’t fun for the Oklahoma men’s basketball team right now. Their season might have hit rock bottom today as they lost to TCU 79-52 on the road.

From the tip, TCU looked and played like the better team. Any signs of a hangover from their road upset over Kansas were nonexistent. OU turned the ball over on four of its first five possessions of the game, helping the Horned Frogs race out to an 11-0 lead. From that point, the avalanche just kept rolling downhill for Porter Moser’s team.

Big 12 Preseason Player of the Year Mike Miles was in a zone for TCU, finishing with 23 points on 6-of-9 shooting, including a perfect 10-of-10 mark from the charity stripe. C.J. Noland led the way for Oklahoma in points with 11 but still finished -24 for the game. Grant Sherfield, Oklahoma’s offensive engine, was bottled up. His five points on 2-of-11 shooting were just a footnote in this game.

TCU’s long and athletic defense swarmed Oklahoma all night and forced them to play way too fast. The Sooners don’t play the fastest but entered the game as the nation’s 20th-ranked field-goal percentage team. TCU’s 66th-ranked defense showed up in a big way to speed them up, and the Frogs did a good job contesting shots throughout the game.

A 44-27 halftime deficit didn’t get any better for the Sooners after the break. The Sooners were on the wrong end of another 11-0 run out of the locker room. Moser had seen enough and gave younger guys like Otega Oweh and Benny Schroder extended minutes in the blowout. The TCU lead ballooned to 31 points, and the rest is history.

Oklahoma’s starters combined for just 20 points. For a normally scrappy Sooners team that has played a lot of tough games, Tuesday’s performance felt like the wheels completely falling off on this Sooners’ season.

The 27-point defeat is OU’s worst loss since it’s a 77-47 loss to Baylor on Jan. 28, 2019.

Oklahoma will step away from the Big 12 grind to do battle with the SEC’s best team, the Alabama Crimson Tide, as part of the Big 12/SEC Challenge on Saturday afternoon. Tip-off between the Sooners and the Crimson Tide is slated for 1 p.m. at the Lloyd Noble Center.

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TCU star Mike Miles has not made a …

TCU star Mike Miles has not made a decision on his basketball future. Miles told the Star-Telegram that he’s still mulling whether to return for his junior season at TCU, or pursue a professional career. “I’ve thought about it, obviously,” Miles said as the basketball team had a meet-and-greet with fans before the baseball team’s 14-5 victory over Kansas State on Saturday at Lupton Stadium.

Aggregate NBA mock draft 2.0: Paolo Banchero, Chet Holmgren, Jabari Smith battle for No. 1

In order to help us get a better sense of where all of the projected top prospects in the class stand as of right now, we compiled mock drafts from ESPN, NBADraft.net, CBS Sports, The Athletic, Bleacher Report, Sports Illustrated, Yahoo, Basketball News and USA TODAY Sports Media Group’s For The Win.

Please note that these rankings reflect the composite score to get a feel for consensus, not our own opinion.

Since our last update, the players who have improved the most spots are Ismael Kamagate (Paris), Moussa Diabate (Michigan), Azuolas Tubelis (Arizona), Hugo Besson (New Zealand), Efe Abogidi (Washington State),  Iverson Molinar (Mississippi State), Justin Lewis (Marquette), Max Christie (Michigan State), EJ Liddell (Ohio State), and Ochai Agbaji (Kansas).

The most notable prospects making their debut on our rankings are Trevor Keels (Duke), Bryce McGowens (Nebraska), MarJon Beauchamp (G League Ignite), Keon Ellis (Alabama), Christian Koloko (Arizona), Wendell Moore (Duke), Blake Wesley (Notre Dame),  Josh Minott (Memphis), Zach Edey (Purdue), and Johnny Davis (Wisconsin).

Some of the top prospects who did not make the cut this time included Hunter Sallis (Gonzaga), Brandon Huntley-Hatfield (Tennesse), Kobe Bufkin (Michigan), Mouhamed Gueye (Washington State), Jahvon Quinerly (Albama), Adam Flagler (Baylor), Jaylin Williams (Auburn), Matthieu Gauzin (Le Mans), Isaiah Wong (Miami), Marcus Williams (Texas A&M), and Tyson Etienne (Wichita State).

Otherwise, you can learn the latest updates on every single prospect who has been included in recent mock drafts by scrolling below.

HoopsHype’s Alberto de Roa contributed research to this report