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  Augusta National Golf Club chairman William Porter Payne (L) presents low amateur Patrick Cantlay of the United States with the trophy during the final round of the 2012 Masters Tournament at Augusta National Golf Club on April 8, 2012 in Augusta, Georgia.
Augusta National Golf Club chairman William Porter Payne (L) presents low amateur Patrick Cantlay of the United States with the trophy during the final round of the 2012 Masters Tournament at Augusta National Golf Club on April 8, 2012 in Augusta, Georgia.
Damian Dottore. Sports. HS Reporter.

// MORE INFORMATION: Associate Mug Shot taken August 24, 2010 : by KATE LUCAS, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

He competes in a sport that hardly gets noticed in the NCAA. Some attending UCLA probably didn’t even realize that the Bruins fielded a golf team until Patrick Cantlay started to become arguably the most decorated athlete in the school’s athletic program.

Since he began attending UCLA in the fall of 2010, he has became the No. 1 amateur in the world, won the Jack Nicklaus Award as the nation’s top Division 1 collegiate golfer and shot a 60 at a PGA Tour event, earning him a spot in the World Golf Hall of Fame.

He has represented the United States in the Walker Cup, qualified for the British Open and was the Low Am last June during the U.S. Open at Congressional Country Club.

These days, it seems as if every time the former CIF state champion for Servite tees it up, he makes a new headline. It happened again last weekend when he shot an even-par 72 in the final round at The Masters to win the Low Am award there too. He has also been selected as a semifinalist for the Hogan Award which is given annually to the best amateur golfer in the nation.

Before he headed off to San Jose to compete in the Western Intercollegiate at Pasatiempo Golf Club in Santa Cruz this weekend, he talked to the Register about his recent success at the Master and when he’s going to turn pro.

Q: There have been some reports that you are going to turn pro after you play in the British Open this summer. You have said that you are going to stay all four years at UCLA. Is that still the case?

A: It is undecided to be honest about it. I haven’t told anyone one thing or the other. That is where I am right now. When the time is right, the time will be right and I will do it.

Q: What was the experience like being in Butler Cabin watching Bubba Watson get his green jacket and being a part of the ceremony as the low amateur?

A: It was cool. I enjoyed it, and it was nice to see Bubba win and it was nice to see him do it the way the he did and no one collapsed. He won it. It was cool to see and I enjoyed it.

Q: Now you mentioned collapsed. When you started the final round, Hideki Matsuyama was six shots ahead of you in the battle for the Low Am award but he had a bad final round and you won it. Do you feel the same about the award as if you would have shot four solid rounds?

A: It is nice to win, and regardless of his collapse I beat him over the four days. I don’t think it takes anything away from being the low amateur. To be honest, I wasn’t worried about that the whole week. I was just trying to play the best that I could. That wasn’t even one of my goals at the beginning of the week. I was just trying to win the golf tournament.

Q: How were you able to rebound during the final round to post an eagle and two birdies in your final four holes after carding a quadruple and a double bogey?

A: I was just trying to hit every shot as best as I could. I just hit nine really bad shots on that one hole (the par-5 No. 15), so I think it is just keeping a level head about you and not letting what happened in the past influence what you are going to do in the future. It was definitely possible that I could have gone the other way and made a couple more doubles and a couple more bogeys and had a really bad final round, but staying in the right frame of mind really helped me.

Q: Compare Augusta National to Congressional where you played the U.S. Open. Which was tougher?

A: Augusta was more difficult. It played really long because the golf course was wet, and you didn’t get any roll out there. One of the days, I had a little wind and the really makes the golf course hard because it makes it hard to hit your landing areas and your landing areas are really precise out there. The greens are very tricky. They really reward being on the correct side of the hole location, and if you aren’t on the correct side, then you are going to have a really hard time two putting or getting up and down, so there is a premium on hitting fairways and greens and hitting the greens in the right spot.

Q: How difficult was it for you and the rest of the guys that went out in the cold and wind on Friday morning when you had your worst round a 6-over 78?

A: It was kind of difficult. It wasn’t impossible. I could have played a lot better and done alright. It is not that a good round wasn’t impossible, it was just that it maximized your mistakes, and I made a lot of mistakes that day. I hit it the worst that day.

Q: What was the experience like staying at the golf course in the Crow’s Nest, being there when there weren’t thousands of people around?

A: It was great. It’s a experience that I think if you are an amateur and playing in the tournament you should probably do it. There is a lot of history with staying there and I enjoyed it. They do a great job of keeping the history of that place relevant. There are a lot of old pictures of the prominent guys that played a long time ago. They are big on the history of the club and you can definitely feel it when you are there.

Q: I heard that you had your own private cabin there one day too on the course?

A: Yeah, for the last day to watch the golf tournament and hang out with my family after the round. That was really cool and nice of them to do.

Q: How much harder has it become for you to win a college golf tournament now that you have had success in Majors? All of the other guys in the tournament have to be coming at you with their best so they can beat the Low Am?

A: I don’t think it has made it any more difficult. You are still just shooting scores you know, so it is the same as it was last year. There are just more expectations, and I am getting really good at dealing with the expectations and not letting them bother me at all.

Q: How much better of a player did the Masters make you?

A: It makes you a much better player. It is like playing 10 tournaments in experience in one tournament which is really cool. There are so many subtleties and little things about the golf course that are tough to pick up on and it really tests all the parts of your game, so it’s really good to play in a tournament like that