This week, Tiger Woods’ longtime caddie, Joe LaCava, made a permanent switch to the bag of PGA Tour star Patrick Cantlay. LaCava, who’s been fiercely loyal to the 15-time major champion, received Tiger’s blessing to move on.

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The move speaks to how Woods may view his future in golf, but it also shines a light on Cantlay as well. The 31-year-old has become one of the best players in the world but has yet to truly be a factor in major championships. He believes the experienced LaCava will provide a “steady hand on the steering wheel.” He spoke about the change in his pre-tournament press conference at this week’s Wells Fargo Championship.

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“He’s just a steady hand on the steering wheel. I know he’s been in every moment a caddie could be in and he’s just a good guy. So, I’ve enjoyed the limited time that I’ve spent with him and feel confident that we’ll be a good team out there,” said Cantlay. “When I reached out to Joe, he said it was possible and ended up working out and I’m really happy about it.”

Cantlay had worked with his previous caddie, Matt Minister, since 2011. Minister was on Cantlay’s bag for his ascension toward the top of the world rankings and his FedEx Cup Championship in 2021.

“Yeah, we accomplished a lot together and I’m really proud of all we accomplished,” said Cantlay. “He’s a great friend of mine and we had a lot of good finishes together and a lot of wins. So, I’m incredibly grateful to him, just needed a change.”

Cantlay also spoke about the pace of play backlash he’s received since his weekend at the Masters made him the apparent poster child for slow play on the PGA Tour, while offering a solution:

“If you really wanted to make guys play faster, you would put the tees up and you would put easier hole locations and the greens would roll at 10 if you really wanted it to, and you hope it never blew more than 10 miles an hour.

“When you get really tricky days and the greens are really fast and the hole locations are on lots of slope, it’s going to take a longer time to play.”

“But like I’ve said before, rounds on Tour have pretty much taken the same amount of time for a number of years now and I don’t think they’re going to set up the golf course in a way, like I said, to make rounds, you know, go a lot faster.”

For what it’s worth, PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan said that Cantlay and his teammate Xander Schauffele finished 24 minutes ahead of schedule at the Zurich Classic of New Orleans.

“He said no one was complaining that they finished too early.”

Cantlay also touched on the proposed “golf ball rollback.”

“I don’t think that it would help the game. I think bifurcation’s really bad for the game,” he explained. “I think one of the best things about our game is that all the people that play at my home club can play the exact same equipment that I do and that’s different than pretty much any other sport.”

“I imagine that the best players are still going to be the best players. If anything, it probably gives more advantage to the guys that hit it far,” said Cantlay. “If they dialed it back how they’re talking about, there’s a lot of guys that would no longer get to a number of par 5s out here, but the guys that can get to those par 5s are still — the guys that get there now with long irons are going to be able to get there with 5-woods or 3-woods. So, I think if anything, if they roll it back, the guys that hit it far will get an increased advantage.”

The fourth-ranked player in the world will tee it up Thursday for this week’s “designated” Wells Fargo Championship with LaCava on the bag.

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