Cantlay's Three-Point Dagger Sends Atlanta Drive Past The Bay 9-3 and Into the First TGL Finals

The only team that had beaten Atlanta Drive GC all season got one more crack at it on Tuesday night, and it never made a putt until the match was already gone. Atlanta Drive GC beat The Bay Golf Club 9-3 in the second TGL semifinal on March 18, 2025, at SoFi Center in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., avenging its lone regular-season loss and booking a spot in the first SoFi Cup Finals.

Patrick Cantlay delivered the dagger on the par-3 12th, answering a Bay Hammer with a tee shot inside four feet and then cashing a three-point hole. Justin Thomas got a bounce on the 10th that Rory McIlroy called the luckiest he had seen. And The Bay, playing without its statistical leader, ran out of answers early.

The Bay Without Clark

The Bay, the No. 2 seed, went into the night shorthanded. Wyndham Clark missed the match with a neck injury after playing all five regular-season matches and leading the league in most statistical categories. Min Woo Lee, Ludvig Åberg and Shane Lowry carried the load. Atlanta, the No. 3 seed, went with its core trio of Thomas, Cantlay and Billy Horschel, with Lucas Glover inactive.

The crowd had a distinctly Atlanta flavor. Chipper Jones and Michael Vick were in the building, along with Falcons quarterback Michael Penix Jr. and tight end Kyle Pitts. So was Rory McIlroy, fresh off winning THE PLAYERS Championship the week before and watching from the seats after his Boston Common Golf team missed the postseason. "I'm certainly having a lot of FOMO," McIlroy said. "I wish I was out there playing instead of watching."

Lee opened with a statement drive, 328 yards with 190 mph of ball speed. It would be one of the few things that went The Bay's way for a while.

Triples: A Seesaw, Then a Shove

Atlanta struck first on the second hole, The Spear. With Horschel standing over a 5-foot birdie putt, Atlanta threw the Hammer, and The Bay declined, conceding the point for a 1-0 Atlanta lead. The third was worse for The Bay. Lowry had a 9-footer to win the hole, and The Bay three-putted for bogey to fall behind 2-0.

The Bay fought back. On the fourth, Lee hit The Bay's second shot from 250 yards to 17 feet, setting up an eagle look, and The Bay threw the Hammer. Atlanta declined, and it was 2-1. On the seventh, The Bay threw again, Atlanta declined again, and the match was tied 2-2.

That was as close as The Bay would get. On the eighth, Lowry nearly holed a 40-foot bunker shot for par, a ball that veered right at the very last moment, and Atlanta took the hole when The Bay declined a Hammer. The ninth went the same way. Two declined Hammers, two Atlanta points, and a 4-2 lead going to Singles.

The Bounce and the Dagger

If there was a sign that it was Atlanta's night, it came on the par-5 10th, The Serpent. Lowry's second shot went into the penalty area. Thomas' second shot looked headed there too, but it bounced off the restricted area and back into play. It was the kind of break that makes a team believe. Thomas made birdie, and Atlanta led 5-2 with five holes left.

The 11th was halved, which left The Bay needing something big on the par-3 12th, Craic On. The Bay threw its last Hammer to double the hole. Cantlay answered with a tee shot that stopped just under four feet from the cup. Atlanta then threw its own final Hammer to make the hole worth three, and Cantlay rolled in the putt. Atlanta led 8-2 with three holes to play, and the match was over.

It was a perfect snapshot of Cantlay's role on this team. Thomas brings the energy, Horschel loves the spotlight, and Cantlay is the one Atlanta trusts to make the cold-blooded play when the math is on the line.

The Bay's first made putt of the night came on the 14th, when Lee rolled in a 19-footer after the match had been decided. Atlanta added one more point late for the 9-3 final.

The Hammer Ledger

Count the Hammers and the shape of the night comes into focus. Atlanta threw on the second, eighth and ninth holes, and The Bay declined all three, conceding a point each time rather than risking two. The Bay threw on the fourth and seventh, and Atlanta declined both. That is five declined Hammers in nine holes, a cautious chess match in which neither side wanted to hand the other a two-point hole.

The difference was what happened when the cautious phase ended. On the 12th, The Bay finally had to push, and Atlanta did not flinch. Cantlay put the ball close, Atlanta raised the stakes again, and three points went up on the board in one stroke. Atlanta had been patient for 11 holes, and when it chose to be aggressive, it did so with a four-footer in hand.

It is a pattern Atlanta has leaned on all season. It rarely forces the issue, it wins the holes the other team gives it, and when the moment comes to strike, the ball is usually close to the hole. Against a Bay team that could not get a putt to drop, that approach was more than enough.

Revenge, Served Cold

Atlanta's only regular-season loss came against The Bay on Presidents Day, a 6-5 heartbreaker in a tripleheader. Since then, Atlanta has won three straight: a 6-3 win over Boston Common Golf that clinched its playoff spot, a 9-1 rout of Jupiter Links without Cantlay or Thomas, and now a six-point semifinal win over the team that beat it.

The Bay, meanwhile, ends a season that started 4-0 with two straight losses. The first, a rally by Los Angeles, cost it the No. 1 seed. The second came without Clark, and the putter that made The Bay so dangerous in the regular season simply went cold. Not making a putt until the 14th hole is hard to overcome in any golf format. In a 15-hole sprint, it is fatal.

Cantlay summed up Atlanta's consistency in typically understated fashion. "Our team's played well most every match," Cantlay said.

Next Up: New York

Atlanta faces No. 4 New York Golf Club in the best-of-three SoFi Cup Finals at SoFi Center. Match 1 is Monday, March 24, at 9 p.m. ET, Match 2 is Tuesday at 7 p.m. ET, and a Match 3, if necessary, would follow at 9 p.m. ET.

New York earned its spot by upsetting top-seeded Los Angeles 6-4 on Monday. Atlanta beat New York 4-0 in January in the league's first shutout, but Thomas was not taking that result to the bank. "They obviously are starting to play well at the right time," Thomas said. "I like our team and I like our chances."

The Take

Atlanta has the cleanest formula in TGL. It does not chase points; it makes the other team chase. On Tuesday, The Bay threw Hammers on the fourth, seventh and 12th, and Atlanta's answers were patient on the first two and ruthless on the third. Atlanta only needed one big swing, and Cantlay delivered it.

The Bay will look back at Clark's injury and a cold putter and wonder. But Atlanta had already shown at full strength and short-handed that it knows how to win in this building. Now it gets two, maybe three, chances to prove it is the best team in the league.

For more, see the TGL match recap (opens in a new tab) and the PGA TOUR recap (opens in a new tab).

Sources: TGL, PGA TOUR, ESPN. More TGL coverage on Undrafted.

Photo: TGL.