Usual grind turns into a back-nine nightmare for Reed
MAMARONECK, N.Y. — Patrick Reed loves the grind.
His back nine Saturday — too much of a good thing.
All the patience, scrambling and short game that put Reed in the lead at the U.S. Open disappeared over the back nine of the third round at Winged Foot. It was replaced by a two-hour barrage of missed fairways and terrible lies, all exacerbated by a putter that seemed to deteriorate by the minute.
Reed made six bogeys and a double over the back nine and shot 8-overpar 43 to finish his day at 7-over 77.
He fell from first place to a tie for 11th, and will head into Sunday with a score of 3-over 213, eight shots behind leader Matthew Wolff, who shot 65 to catapult to first after trailing Reed by four coming into the round.
“Well, I got all my bad shots out of the way,” Reed said when asked what he took from the round. “It was just one of those days. I couldn’t find a fairway, and from there, trying to guess out of the rough all day, it was just hard. It was brutal.”
Nine bad holes certainly won’t alter the narrative on Reed, the 2018 Masters champion. He believes he’s built to succeed when courses are set up the way Winged Foot is this week — with narrow fairways, high rough and difficult greens demanding the best from the best players.
And when the course toughened up Friday — more than 2 ½ shots harder than it played in the first round Thursday — Reed wasn’t all that surprised that he was at the top of the leaderboard heading into the weekend. “I love the grind,” he said before leaving the course with the sun setting Friday, on the heels of a 4-under 66.
A much different story come sunset Saturday. While Wolff (two fairways) and Bryson DeChambeau (three fairways en route to a 70 that left him two shots behind) both thrived out of the rough, the unpredictable lies wore down Reed.
“When you get in the really thick stuff, the ball seems to sit all the way to the bottom and then it’s just a hack out. My short game just could not save me today,” Reed said.
Over the first 45 holes, he missed 23 of 35 fairways but averaged 1.44 putts per hole and was still tied for the lead at 5 under. Over the last nine holes, Reed missed seven of eight fairways, and averaged 1.77 putts.
Over t he first t wo rounds, he got up and down to save par 10 of 15 times. On Saturday he went 1-for-9.