Xander Schauffele smirks after Patrick Cantlay comment in TGL news conference
Matthew Fitzpatrick poked fun at PGA Tour rival Patrick Cantlay, suggesting the American will abuse the timeout system in TGL.
PGA Tour star Patrick Cantlay hasn't even played in a TGL event yet but the American is already getting taunted over what his pace of play will be like.
Golf's latest venture - an indoor high-tech league launched by Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy - will get underway on 7 January 2025.
Cantlay is part of the Atlanta Drive quartet alongside Justin Thomas, Billy Horschel and Lucas Glover.
In recent weeks more information has filtered out over what we can expect.
On 6 November, TGL confirmed there will be shot clocks, timeouts and even a referee.
Each player will have 40 seconds to hit their shot and each team will have four timeouts available.
The players from New York Golf Club were in the Big Apple earlier this week to drum up interest for TGL.
Xander Schauffele, Rickie Fowler, Matthew Fitzpatrick and Cameron Young took part in a new conference alongside former NFL star Eli Manning.
He asked which player was likely to take the most timeouts.
The Athletic's Gabby Herzig captured the response.
"It's gotta be Patrick Cantlay," Fitzpatrick said.
Cantlay has been accused of playing far too slowly in recent years.
Brooks Koepka even called out Cantlay indirectly after the 2023 Masters, describing his former Ryder Cup teammate as 'brutally slow'.
For his part Cantlay defended himself against the criticism, explaining how he had never been warned for playing out of position on the PGA Tour.
Although he did concede he was deliberate.
"I don't worry if I'm unfairly criticized," he previously said.
"It's a similar question for do you feel you're underrated or not talked about, which I've gotten before.
"I don't try to pay too much attention to that, I just try to shoot the lowest scores I possibly can.
"Like I said before, I don't spend any time on social media so I haven't seen any of it."
As for Fitzpatrick, it is widely known he has a problem with pace of play on Tour.
Last week, the Tour's policy board approved changes that will reduce field sizes in regular events from 2026.
It was argued this would have an impact on pace of play, but the 2022 U.S. Open champion thought that argument was nonsense:
TGL stars appear on Jimmy Fallon
The New York Golf Club quartet also appeared on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon on 25 November.
Watch a clip here:
Ben joined the GolfMagic team in September 2021, initially as a content executive.
These days, he assumes the position of content manager.
