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The United States headed to the Ryder Cup hoping to win the event on foreign soil for the first time since 1993, but it was unable to bounce back from the atrocious start that allowed Team Europe to walk away with the victory in Rome. However, both sides experienced their fair share of drama—none of which garnered more attention than the Patrick Cantlay controversy dubbed “HatGate.”
After Cantlay declined to wear a hat while taking on his European opponents at Marco Simone Golf & Country Club, a reporter came forward to claim the lack of headgear was a silent protest by a man who was purportedly angry he didn’t get paid to compete in the Ryder Cup.
That assertion didn’t stand up to a ton of scrutiny when you consider Cantlay had also gone without a hat when he played at the Ryder Cup in 2021, and if he was really so annoyed about the lack of compensation, it’s not a huge stretch to suggest he would’ve simply skipped the most recent iteration to let someone who’s more than happy to play for national pride take his spot.
With that said, plenty of people still bought into the story—including a bunch of European fans who used it as inspiration for an admittedly hilarious act of collective trolling.
Fans waving their hats right in the face of Patrick Cantlay.
(via NBC) pic.twitter.com/hkAddHkvub— Golf on CBS ⛳ (@GolfonCBS) September 30, 2023
According to Golfweek, Jim Furyk (who served as Zach Johnson’s vice captain at the Ryder Cup) addressed that particular topic on Tuesday and claimed the issue boiled down to a pretty simple explanation: Cantlay has a massive head.
Here’s what he had to say:
“He took a lot of beating that day from, whether it was from the media, from the fans about not wearing a hat, the speculation that maybe he didn’t want to wear the American flag, whatever it may be. I think you saw the support from the players.
Pat, he’s got a big noggin. We have a hard time getting him in a hat. He hasn’t worn one for three or four years in the Presidents Cup or Ryder Cup.”
It’s worth noting Cantlay did, in fact, wear a hat at the Presidents Cup in 2022 (a competition where he was paid to compete), and while Furyk’s summary of the situation lines up with what Cantlay had to say when asked about HatGate at the Ryder Cup, the fact that this is a known issue makes you wonder why the folks at New Era weren’t able to go out of their way to get him a lid that fit correctly.
With that said, it’s still a hat at the end of the day, so even if Furyk is helping Cantlay with a cover story, the golf world probably has bigger things to worry about in the grand scheme of things.