Patrick Cantlay unapologetic after Matt Fitzpatrick criticizes slow play

“If you’re in a three-ball, in my opinion, you should be around in four hours, four-and-a-half at the absolute maximum — it’s a disgrace to get anywhere near that,” Fitzgerald, who didn’t single out Cantlay by name, told the British news outlet. “You’re talking five hours and 15 minutes, 5½ hours at some venues, and it’s truly appalling.”

“No one’s going to do anything about it. It’s like hitting your head against a brick wall,” added the 28-year-old Fitzpatrick, who won last year’s U.S. Open and is currently No. 8 in the official world rankings. “No one ever gets penalized.”

“I played the last two tournaments, and my group hasn’t been warned at all,” Cantlay said Wednesday. “So we’ve been in position the entire time. I don’t know how you would want even the groups that I’ve been in to play faster, when our groups are in position and can’t go faster because the group in front of us is right in front of us.”

The comments from the 31-year-old Cantlay echoed those he made last week, following a performance at the Masters during which his relatively slow pace appeared to be too much to bear at times for final-round partner Viktor Hovland. One clip from the telecast that went viral showed Hovland chipping onto the 13th green despite the fact that Cantlay was still walking up the fairway, well behind Hovland on the other side of the creek.

Brooks Koepka, who played with Jon Rahm behind Cantlay and Hovland in the final Masters pairing, made clear his frustration after being forced to wait at a number of tee boxes.

“The group in front of us was brutally slow,” Koepka said after coughing up a Sunday lead to Rahm and finishing tied for second. “Jon went to the bathroom like seven times during the round, and we were still waiting.”

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Asked ahead of the RBC Heritage about Koepka’s remarks, Cantlay deflected blame and pointed to groups ahead of his.

“We waited all day on pretty much every…