Patrick Reed finally delivers major action to go with big talk
There’s a point at which youthful bravado isn’t cute anymore, a point at which you’ve got to deliver on big talk and bigger attitude. Patrick Reed has just about run out the clock on the smug arrogance with which he rolled onto the PGA Tour.
But look at him now: unlikely standard-bearer for American golf in the Olympics. Gracious guest in Scotland. Clubhouse leader (for a little while, at least) after a five-under 66 in the first round of the British Open. Life moves pretty fast, huh?
At first glance, Reed’s an easy guy to hate. He damn sure looks like that I-can-top-that dude in your foursome, the guy at the bar who’s as likely to start a fight as buy everyone a round. He barreled onto the Tour with a swirl of rumors in his wake, including frustrated and enraged college teammates, whispers about on-course conduct, stories of relationships severed without explanation. He carried himself with confidence spilling into arrogance—Shane Ryan’s Slaying the Tiger includes an anecdote about how Reed used to introduce himself: “I’m Patrick Reed, and I’ll kick the [crap] out of you at golf any time you want.”
Adding to the ready-made villain narrative, he also entered the public eye at the same moment as the greatest gift to old-school golf fans since the 1986 Masters. Reed and Jordan Spieth arrived at the precipice of the PGA Tour at roughly the same time, and you couldn’t have scripted a better yin-and-yang of the future of golf. Spieth was polite, well-mannered, thoughtful, humble, a perfectly formed Ideal Golfer who sent the media swooning.
The two made for exactly the kind of story golf loves: either/or, good guy/bad guy, decorum/swagger. Reed drew first blood, defeating Spieth in a playoff at the Wyndham Championship in August 2013. Two wins later, after a victory at the WGC-Cadillac Championship at Doral in March 2014, Reed raised the ante, calling himself “one of the top five players in the world.” He compared himself to Tiger Woods and “the other legends of the game,” adding, “To come out in a field like this and to hold on wire to wire like that, I feel like I’ve proven myself.”
Later that year, Reed teamed with Spieth at the 2014 Ryder Cup, and their pairing was one of the few highlights in a United States meltdown that ended with Phil Mickelson and Tom Watson throwing postmatch press conference barbs at one another.
The Ryder Cup offered a chance for Reed to take his heel persona to the world stage. His 3-0-1 record was the best on either team, and during his Sunday singles matchup against Henrik Stenson, he shushed the Gleeneagles crowd en route to a victory. The big dog was starting to eat everything in sight.
Except, well … the big dog is a puppy when majors come around.
As Reed’s contemporaries won big, Reed spun his wheels. When Spieth won the 2015 Masters, Reed finished in a tie for 22nd. When Jason Day won the 2015 PGA Championship, Reed finished in a tie for 30th. When Dustin Johnson won this year’s U.S. Open, a tournament at which Reed was a trendy dark horse pick, Reed didn’t even see the weekend. To date, Reed has played in 10 majors, including this week, and has not finished in the top 10 in any of them.
At long last, that might change. Reed entered the week as an unexpected symbol of American golf, having proudly announced his intention to compete in Rio at a time when Spieth, Johnson, and many other notables were bailing out. He followed that good press by carding a 66 Thursday in round 1 of the British Open, tying the record for an Open first round at Troon and, of course, good for the clubhouse lead. (Phil Mickelson would take both for himself a few hours later with a 63.) Reed took every advantage of surprisingly ideal and highly un-Scottish scoring conditions—brilliant sunshine, mild winds—drained a 139-yard approach from the fairway on the third hole for eagle. He’d record five more birdies against two bogeys the rest of the round.
Reed appears to have an affinity for links golf, a love he traces back to 2006, when he played in the British Junior and stayed afterward to watch Tiger Woods’ early rounds at Hoylake. Woods had to get creative to win that week, and that approach stuck with Reed.
“Just watching the different shots that other players were hitting, I always thought it would be fun because I love to create shots and hit the funny things,” he said. “At home, we can’t do that. It’s too soft. So you can’t hit the stinger 2-iron and let it run, or the low hook chip shot and watch it bounce up a hill and kind of trickle over. Those aren’t things we can do at home. It’s more thick rough, take the ball in the air and try to stop it. So I feel like my creative side has been able to come out.”
There’s a lot of time, distance, wind, and rain between Reed and the Claret Jug. But he’s set up as well as anyone else in the field. It’s time, at long last, for Reed to deliver on all his talk.
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Jay Busbee is a writer for Yahoo Sports and the author of EARNHARDT NATION, on sale now at Amazon or wherever books are sold. Contact him at jay.busbee@yahoo.com or find him on Twitter or on Facebook.
