Patrick Reed unafraid of Sawgrass hecklers at Players Championship
It is golf’s equivalent of running the gauntlet. The walk to Sawgrass’s 17th tee, especially lively on a Friday afternoon, triggers thoughts of impending doom. The green is not, as widely depicted, an island, but the water that all but surrounds it makes this one of the PGA Tour’s most treacherous holes.
Recent years have seen a notable increase in heckling – alcohol-fuelled, typically – as Players Championship competitors reach the penultimate tee. Sergio García was a high-profile victim of abuse in 2015. The level of noise that has already surrounded Patrick Reed this season, owing to a penalty incurred during a December tournament in the Bahamas, means it is hardly a leap to fear what he might encounter here. And yet Reed, routinely and somewhat amazingly, has the capacity to block out all discord.
Reed answered with a firm “no” when asked on Wednesday whether criticism perturbs him. The evidence backs that up; he won a World Golf Championship in Mexico last month just days after Brooks Koepka publicly questioned his character. Sawgrass holds no fears for Reed.
“I think the PGA Tour has done a great job on the security and the fans,” Reed said. “I feel like, as a whole, the fans have been pretty good. You’re always going to get a couple people here and there that are going to say something. That’s normal, in any sport you play. For me, when I get inside those ropes I have a job to do and that’s to go out and play good golf, to have a chance to win on Sundays and to provide for my family and to go out and represent myself the best way I can. And I feel like I’ve been doing that.”
According to his own testimony, Reed is instead worried about the potential wrath of Kessler Karain, after events in the annual pre-tournament caddie competition at the 17th. “Kessler, it’s the first time he’s actually hit the green,” Reed said. “Normally he hits it in the water. So that means I cannot hit it in the water the next four days because if I do, if I hit in the water once, I won’t hear the end of it until next year.”
Reed clearly does not believe altering the narrative around him is entirely within his own control. “Well, winning always helps everything. But really at the end of the day the noise goes away once y’all decide it goes away. I feel like the players and all of us have moved on, but at the end of the day all we can do is go out and continue playing good golf and doing what we’re supposed to do.”
In competitive terms, this could be a key year for Reed. He invited some ridicule when classing himself as one of the world’s top five players six years ago. He arrived at Sawgrass ranked No8, with that Mexican success his eighth on the PGA Tour.
“It would mean everything,” Reed said of hitting his top-five goal. “Every golfer and every competitor that’s out here playing, they’re all trying to get to one spot and that’s to be the best player in the world. All of us are working very hard to win golf tournaments to get to