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LAHAINA, HAWAII | Give Patrick Reed this:
For better or worse, he’s not afraid to be himself.
In that way, Reed is like anchovies: Strong, salty and an acquired taste that not everyone acquires.
We find ourselves in a new year, full of fresh starts, hopeful promises and all those people who swear they’re going to be regulars at the gym while giving up carbs from now on.
If anyone could benefit by having the residue of 2019 washed away, it’s Reed, whose December was one to remember but for too many of the wrong reasons.
January began almost perfectly for Reed as he played himself into a sudden-death playoff at the Sentry Tournament of Champions with the late-sputtering Justin Thomas and the relentless Xander Schauffele, only to lose to Thomas on the third extra hole.
But in Maui’s deepening dusk late Sunday afternoon, the shadow Reed won’t soon shake was there again.
Reed heard a fan bellow, “Cheater,” as the final birdie putt he needed raced past the hole.
It was loud, crass and unnecessary, but it’s not the first time Reed has heard it and won’t be the last.
Reed has managed, through words and deeds, to put a black hat on Captain America, a nickname that we hopefully can retire now that Reed has gone 2-5 in the most recent Ryder Cup and Presidents Cup matches.
On Sunday at Kapalua, though, Reed showed us again his fearless side, the game face when his eyes squint a little and he becomes golf’s version of the Old West gunslinger. There had to be plenty of motivation for a guy who isn’t afraid of a little turmoil, even if much of it is self-imposed.
Winning the first event of 2020 would have made the narrative about Reed for the right reasons. He’s a guy who could use an aggressive public relations campaign, and reminding everyone of how good he can be was a start. But as the heckler reminded Reed, he’s the most polarizing player in the game.
Spend time around Reed and he’s generally chatty, smiling and approachable. Ask his peers and many talk about how enjoyable he is to be around, then shake their heads at some of the things he’s done.
Does it make him a marketing dream? No, but his name adds a dash of hot sauce on the leaderboard. In a sport where fans cheer for everyone, Reed has put himself in a purgatory of sorts.
Reed doesn’t hide and seems perfectly content to walk through whatever storm may be blowing around him, outwardly unaffected. Sometimes it’s because he has music thumping through his earbuds, but not always.
We’ve all been told to be ourselves and Reed has apparently mastered it.
More than most, Reed has found or put himself in awkward spots but it doesn’t seem to matter to him. He’s not oblivious but he appears unbothered.
If it were only about the golf with him.
Then Reed would be a top-15 player, a guy whose average weeks are good and whose good weeks can be special, as the green jacket he won in 2018 demonstrated. He really can play and his greatest asset is his competitiveness. Many players burn inside. Reed seethes. It’s the greatest strength of his game.
Maybe that’s what gets Reed in trouble. It was frustration when he blurted out his grievances after the Ryder Cup in 2018 and there’s still no defending the way he reacted to his blatant rules breach at the Hero World Challenge in December.
He clearly broke the rules and showed no remorse after being penalized, a reaction that made a bad moment worse. It will stay with him like a tattoo.
Privately, some players believe he should have been suspended by the PGA Tour or, at minimum, withdrawn from Tiger Woods’ event after practically shoveling sand out of his club path on practice swings in a waste bunker.
On the European Tour, Simon Dyson was fined £30,000 and initially suspended for two months in 2013 after being disqualified from the BMW Masters, where he tapped down a spike mark in his line. (His ban subsequently was lifted in favor of probation after officials determined his act was not premeditated.) All Reed got – at least publicly – was a two-stroke penalty and a tee time in the final round.
“Golf is a game of honor and integrity and you’ve heard from Patrick,” PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan said Sunday. “I had an opportunity to talk to Patrick at length and I believe Patrick when he says, ‘I did not intentionally improve my lie.’
“You go back to that moment and the conversation he had with (rules official) Slugger (White) and the fact that the violation was applied and he agreed to it and they signed his card and he moved on. To me that was the end of the matter. No, there wasn’t further discussion. The matter was tended to that night.”
The ripples – because it was Reed – lasted long after, though.
If Reed had fallen on his wedge that afternoon in the Bahamas and said something to the effect of, “I can’t believe I did something so stupid. I know it’s wrong, I should have called it on myself immediately when it was pointed out to me,” the damage could have been minimized.
Reed didn’t do that and later made light of his misdeed by pretending to shovel sand walking off a green in the Presidents Cup. Talk about tone deaf.
When Reed hit his second shot into the knee-deep brush to the left of the 15th green on Friday at the Tournament of Champions and needed help finding his ball, heads turned.
“It’s pretty important for Patrick Reed to get it right at this point in his career and he’s going to have to get it right for a long time to come,” Paul Azinger said on the television coverage.
Stinging but true.
Whether intentional or not, Reed has made himself into a player who invites discussion. He’s not like everyone else. He’s that guy.
They rode him hard at the Presidents Cup in Australia, which he had to expect. It went over the line at times, according to people who saw and heard it, but chances are it won’t be the last time.
When Reed is in contention on Sunday afternoons – such as the moment in the playoff against Thomas – how many fans will be pulling against him?
That’s where Reed finds himself these days.
Can he change the perception of himself, tidying up the rough edges by saying and doing all the right things? Would that be enough?
Does it matter?
In Maui last week, Reed marched on through the wind and the rain, jumping not just into a new year but a new decade.
Going his own way, wherever it leads.
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