The man underneath that Green Jacket
One of the back stories of this year’s Masters victory by Patrick Reed is his estranged relationship with his mom and dad.
As much as some think that a high profile golfer’s personal life should be off limits, the truth is that people want to know the personal side. Perhaps we have Tiger Woods to thank for that.
Learning that Reed hasn’t spoken to his parents or sister in six years was known to golf insiders but not much beyond that. Us golf fans do spend a fair amount of time talking about what we think these famous and super-talented men and women are like off the course. I was disappointed to learn about Patrick Reed’s family problems, for reasons you can google all on your own.
Most accounts may leave you feeling a little less enamoured with him as a man. And given the pedestal we want our green jacket owners to be on, it could change how you feel about Sunday’s back nine showdown. But mostly it might just make you feel sad.
On my recent golf trip with some buddies from Wildfire, the four of us were sitting around one night and “Turbo” made up an interesting game he wanted us to play, in his never-ending quest to “get into the kitchens” of his competitors. So, he stands up in the middle of the living room on Masters Saturday, in the house we are renting there, and hands each of us a piece of paper and pencil. He proceeds to tell us to write down a name of the pro golfer we think we are most like. Along with a couple reasons why.
So we each did this and handed the pieces of paper back to him. And he proceeded to play game show host, walking us through an in-depth psychoanalysis of why we were or were definitely not like Henrik Stenson, Jason Dufner, Justin Thomas and Steve Stricker.
Hilarious comments ensued. And in typical guys’ golf trip fashion, we each were knocked down a couple pegs, feeling a little less confident in how we acted on the course and how we went about our lives. Which, according to Turbo, was the main reason guys like us should go on these trips—to be reminded that we’re not as great as we think.
It is illuminating to hear others tell you honestly what you are like on the course. Your regular golf mates don’t focus on what you shoot or how far or straight you hit it but other more interesting, human traits.
Remember you’re with them for four hours at a time, and in that time you might spend 10 minutes standing over a ball. The rest is your true self shining through. Brightly. Your behaviour and personality on course is so much more interesting than whether you shot 75 or 85. As the former Sports Illustrated writer, Alan Shipnuck, said on Twitter defending his personal exposé on Patrick Reed, “it’s the personal that makes sports interesting— otherwise it’s just birdies and bogies and who cares?”
We will learn more about Reed in the weeks ahead as clothing and equipment companies line up to sign him to bigger and better deals. We will learn how and why they feel he can help them sell something to the golfing world at large. It will be interesting to see if that kind of lukewarm fan reaction that he received on the 18th green Sunday was a precursor to how much the golf world will worship him versus tolerate him.
Until then let’s admire an incredible major victory, and hope he and his family can get in a better place in the months ahead.