re: Long Article on Patrick Reed

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Patrick Reed is the fricking man!

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During a qualifying round prior to a tournament, according to sources, Reed hit a ball far into the rough. When he approached the spot, he found another ball sitting closer to the fairway, and was preparing to hit it when several of his teammates confronted him. Reed pled ignorance, but the other Georgia players were convinced he had been caught red-handed trying to cheat. That same fall, several items went missing from the Georgia locker room, including a watch, a Scotty Cameron putter, and $400 cash. When Reed showed up the next day with a large wad of cash, sources say a teammate confronted him and asked how he’d come by the money. Reed said he’d played golf with a professor at the school and hustled him out of the cash. The player in question took this claim to the professor, who had no idea what he was talking about—it had been weeks since the man had played with Reed.

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He would openly tell his teammates that he was better than they were, that he was going to beat them, and etc. They didn’t enjoy having him around

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On one memorable night—one of the few times he hung out with his teammates in a social setting—sources say he became so belligerent at one of his teammates that he earned a punch in the face. He also got suspended for the start of the season for reasons that remained shrouded in mystery for the longest time, kept secret by golf’s omerta.

The news trickled around the Georgia golf community, though, and the cause of the suspension—confirmed by multiple sources—didn’t surprise the teammates who knew him back in Athens: Cheating in a qualifying event.

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he was slightly more cordial with his teammates, but when I asked multiple sources whether this meant they actually liked him, the response was unanimous: Hell no.

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Still, his teammates’ attitude never changed. Before the last round of his college career, in the national championship against Harris English, a group of Reed’s Augusta State teammates approached English—one of the most well-liked, easygoing players in the sport—with an emphatic message:

“We want to win the national title, but we hope you kick the shite out of Patrick Reed.”

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Uihlein conceded a short par putt to Reed, and Reed refused to return the favor when Uihlein’s birdie attempt rolled up next to the hole. Uihlein, annoyed, stood over his putt and missed.

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After telling me how happy he was when he realized who his opponent would be, Reed was quick to add that Uihlein was his “good friend”— a typical verbal maneuver for Reed, and one which I might even have believed if he didn’t keep using it in reference to certain golfers, like Harris English, who I knew definitively were not his friend.

Later in the year, when I told Henrik Stenson that Reed had included him in the “good friends” list, he laughed, and responded with his unique brand of dry, Swedish humor.

“I wouldn’t say that we go way back,” he deadpanned. “I played one practice round with him at Wells Fargo a couple years ago. And…well, it’s nice if he thinks that everyone he knows a little bit is one of his friends. That’s obviously a way to look at it. But if I’m going to express myself politically, I guess he’s an interesting character.”

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at the WGC event in November, he was caught on camera chastising himself with the kind of language that goes beyond the usual self-loathing. “Nice fricking three-putt, you fricking ****,” he said. “Go fricking hang yourself.”

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