Ask the Athlete: Learn golf secrets from Cal Poly star Caroline Cantlay
Want to learn how to play great golf?
Caroline Cantlay has some tips for you on how she approaches the game.
Cantlay — the Cal Poly record-holder for the lowest single match round — is the second-lowest scoring golfer on Cal Poly’s women’s team this season, averaging 73.9 strokes per match.
The sister of PGA star Patrick Cantlay, Caroline came to Cal Poly out of Rosary Academy (based in Fullerton) and excelled from the star, earning Big West Conference Freshman of the Year honors.
Cantlay, now a fifth-year senior, has faced the nerves of playing in high-pressure matches and fine-tuned her game with lots and lots of practice.
In the 2021-22 season, Cantlay has tallied seven rounds of par or under and shot one round in the 60s, according to the Cal Poly women’s golf website.
The Mustangs’ team, currently ranked 67th in the country, is gearing up to play in the NCAA Stanford Regional on May 9-11 at the Stanford Golf Course.
As part of The Tribune’s ongoing “Ask the Athlete” series on tips from local experts on how they play their sport, Cantlay offered basic pointers that she says can improve anyone’s golf game.
“My best advice is that you don’t want to think too much about what’s happening out there,” Cantlay said. “At the end of the day, it’s a game and all about having fun. Don’t put too much pressure on yourself. Go out and have a good time.”
Key golf tips
Cantlay advises junior and recreational golfers to develop repeatable habits with each shot.
A cheat sheet for basic tips includes the following:
▪ Calculate distance before a shot and pick an object in sight for a target.
▪ Take a deep breath before a shot (Cal Poly coach Sofie Aagaard advises a hefty breath that should be “noticeable”).
▪ Have an athletic stance, feet roughly shoulder-width apart, regardless of the type of shot.
▪ Keep your eyes trained on the ball until you’ve made contact.
▪ Hold the follow through (hands over shoulder).
▪ When putting, make sure you’re keeping the ball to the high side where the break slopes toward the hole (using gravity to help).
▪ Putts should also miss a little bit long for the best chance to go in on a regular basis.
“Pick whatever club you want to hit and plan out your shot,” Cantlay said. “Before I get up to the ball, I personally like to stand behind it and take two practice swings. I think it’s helpful to have a number (of practice swings) in mind and keep it consistent so that you don’t take a different number of times whether you’re nervous or not.”
Cantlay added: “I stand back, look at my target, really focus on the target, and that becomes everything in my mind. I take a big deep breath that’s noticeable, and then I step into my shot. I’m prepared to hit the shot in front of me — and I swing away and let the ball go where it goes.”
Other golf insights
There are several reasons for a routine and repeatable approaches to playing the game, Cantlay said.
A deep breath helps clear the mind and slow the thought process.
The reason behind holding the follow through is to keep technically sound form and not to “come out of the shot,” which can affect the contact and line, Cantlay said.
A pre-planned target can be a tree or hill or object of some kind in the distance in the same line as where you want to land the ball.
Don’t think swing mechanics while on the course; those issues should be worked out in practice, Cantlay said.
“It would take some work to fix a big slice,” Cantlay said in terms of more in-depth swing tips.
Missing putts to the low slope side gives no chance of a ball breaking to the hole, thus err on the high side.
Putt misses should be anywhere up to two feet extra, but not more. You want to avoid a challenging clean-up putt should the ball not go in.
Dealing with pressure
The pressures of golf are easy to succumb to.
Cantlay said it’s important to enjoy the experience — recalling a time before a match where she and others had to wait about 20 minutes with their opponents before teeing off on the first hole.
While it can be easy to stress anticipation, she chatted with a teammate about animal crackers. That helped take their minds off the expectation of the round.
Cantlay said that practice is best for any swing adjustment and to work out the kinks.
Then, it’s time to play and not overthink.
A memorable round is around the corner.
Cantlay recalled her most memorable tournament, in October 2019, when she knew she had a chance to break the school record for a low round. The team was playing in Hawaii — and coming down the stretch of the 18th hole she felt the nerves.
“I was so nervous because I thought I was going to have to make a birdie on the last hole to break the record,” Caroline said. “I ended up making par. I was happy but I was a little bummed because I thought I had missed it by one.”
In fact, she’d broken the school scoring record and the team celebrated.
“I think we ended up going to a luau that night, so it was just the accumulation of everyone playing well and then also my having my teammates there to support me and being in Hawaii, which was cool,” Cantlay said.
Cantlay doesn’t want to be a pro golfer
The level of work that’s required to be a professional golfer, though, is extreme — and Cantlay doesn’t expect to pursue the path of her two older brothers, Patrick on the PGA and Nick Cantlay on the Korn Ferry Tour.
Her brothers, both of whom she’s very proud, have made huge sacrifices in their lives, Cantlay said.
“There’s a lot of work that goes on behind the scenes and I am very respectful of them. And it’s not something that I don’t think I would enjoy as much as they do,” said Cantlay, an agricultural business major and economics minor. “I don’t want to have that feeling like my livelihood or who I am as a person is as connected to that. I have other talents and dreams that I want to accomplish.”
First, Cantlay wants to finish her college career strong before entering the working world.
Cal Poly, led in scoring by star freshman Kaylyn Noh (73.3 stroke average), is well prepared after winning the Big West Conference Championship and earning a berth in the NCAA Regionals.
“We’re very excited,” Cantlay said. “Stanford is where we went last year (for the NCAA Regionals) and playing with those teams, who are the top in the nation, it was a big wake up call and we learned a lot that week. I remember coming back and feeling like, ‘I wish I could go play again next week because I feel like I’ve learned so much.’”
This story was originally published May 1, 2022 at 5:00 AM.
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