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Patrick Reed won the WGC-Mexico Championship Sunday in Mexico City when he made three late birdies while Bryson DeChambeau struggled down the stretch after leading by two strokes with three holes to play.
Reed, who won for the eighth time on the PGA Tour and picked up his second World Golf Championship title, shot a final-round 67 to finish at 18-under-par 266 at Club de Golf Chapultepec, one stroke ahead of DeChambeau, despite a closing bogey. Birdies at the 16th and 17th holes allowed Reed to leapfrog DeChambeau, who shot 65 Sunday but had a costly three-putt bogey at the 17th hole.
If Reed has demonstrated anything in his career, it’s that he has ability to thrive when a storm is blowing around him.
He proved it again in Mexico City, wrestling away the championship of a tournament stuffed with stars on the leaderboard at the end of a week when he again was in the crosshairs of discussion related to his actions in a bunker at December’s Hero World Challenge.
Reed, who essentially played his way onto the PGA Tour several years ago through Monday qualifiers, is a tenacious competitor who hasn’t let controversy deter him.
While four-time major champion Brooks Koepka spoke out last week about Reed’s reluctance to call a penalty on himself when he twice moved sand from behind his ball before playing a shot in the Hero World Challenge – and former TV analyst Peter Kostis chimed in with his own rules-related criticism of the 2018 Masters champion – Reed stayed locked in on what he was doing on the course.
Asked several times how he handles the distraction that has brought his character into question, Reed has developed a stock answer he employed in Mexico.
“The biggest thing for me is any time you go to the golf course, pop in my headphones, get to work, and just really get in tune with every golf shot I hit because at the end of the day you can't listen to what other people are saying, all you can control is what you do,” Reed said.
“For me, I just go out there and try to play the best golf I can, try to improve on and off the golf course each and every day, and if I feel like I'm doing that, then I'm living the right way and I'm working as hard as I need to be working.”
On a Sunday when third-round leader Justin Thomas fizzled with a closing 73, Rory McIlroy couldn’t generate enough positive momentum and Jon Rahm fell short of a victory that would have made him No. 1 in the world, Reed seized the opportunity when DeChambeau wobbled late.
“It’s very rewarding,” Reed said. “My team and I have worked so hard through the end of last year and the beginning of this year. We were playing some good golf but we weren’t quite able to get over the hump.
“To win my second World Golf Championship with how I had to finish from No. 15 on … The last hole was ugly, but it was what I needed just to get the job done. At the end of the day, just putting yourself in these positions on Sunday is just unbelievable. It’s a great feeling.”
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