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After Europe dominated the entirety of Friday and Saturday morning, the United States made a comeback on Saturday afternoon, winning three of four matches.
Luke Donald and his European squad hold a hefty 10.5-5.5 lead with 12 singles matches to go, and it would take a Sunday miracle for the U.S. to win. The 12 matchups should be extremely entertaining, especially after the drama between Patrick Cantlay’s caddie Joe LaCava and Rory McIlroy during the last bout on Saturday.
Ryder Cup day 3 prediction: Sunday singles
The following pick is for the 18 holes played on Sunday.
Patrick Cantlay to defeat Justin Rose @ -125 (1.8)
After everything that transpired with the report of Cantlay not getting along with his teammates, the World No. 5 went into full “demon” mode on Saturday and won his match alongside Wyndham Clark over Rory McIlroy and Matt Fitzpatrick.
The 31-year-old pretended to tip his cap to the heckling fans after sinking the winning putt on the 18th green. The USA team members all took off their caps and tipped Cantlay to show solidarity and support for their compatriot.
Cantlay’s actually played really well this week and was hindered by his partner, Xander Schauffele. Cantlay and Schauffele were deadlocked with Jon Rahm and Tyrrell Hatton, arguably the two best players so far at the Ryder Cup, after 15 holes on Saturday morning.
Schauffele lipped out two extremely short birdie putts set up by Cantlay, and the duo ended up losing. The most impressive shot from Cantlay all week was on the Par 3, 17th during that match. Jon Rahm hit one of the shots of the tournament and nearly aced it. Cantlay had to follow up the shot in front of the mostly hostile fans and displayed nerves of steel, lasering his iron shot to within a couple of feet, which Schauffele lipped.
The UCLA product, Cantlay, has been the second-best player on the United States’ roster and fifth-best at the Ryder Cup in terms of strokes: gained total (+4.48).
Cantlay has gained strokes in every major statistical category, including putting (+1.04), around the green (+2.11), approach (+0.49), off the tee (+0.85) and tee-to-green (+3.44, ranks fifth).
Rose has been hot with his putter (ranks first) but has been set up by his teammates a lot. He’s been a lot more inconsistent this season and, in the Ryder Cup, actually ranks dead-last in strokes gained around the green (-2.91). He also is sixth-worst in strokes gained tee-to-green (-2.91).
In terms of strokes gained total, Cantlay has picked up an average of 4.14 more strokes than Rose per round. He also ranked better last season on the PGA Tour.
Strokes gained: Total (At Ryder Cup)
- Cantlay: +4.48 (ranked fifth)
- Rose: 0.34 (ranked 10th)
Strokes gained Total (PGA Tour 2022-2023)
- Cantlay: +1.869 (ranked third)
- Rose: +1.193 (ranked 13th)
There’s no doubt that Rose is an extremely talented golfer, and he is playing in Europe. However, he doesn’t hold all the tools Cantlay owns and has performed worse than him for most of the year and this week in Italy.
Cantlay is in full revenge mode for what was reported against him and has a vendetta against all the fans mocking him. I can never fade the No. 4 golfer in the world who’s a man on a mission.
The -125 odds provided by Unibet are excellent thanks to other books, such as FanDuel listing Cantlay as -150 with 60% implied odds he’ll win.
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