From bad boy to USA cheerleader for Reed
PATRICK REED will be the USA’s mostunlikely inspirational team player at Hazeltine this week
Booted off the University of Georgia team as simply the guy whose company the rest of the team could not stand, he transferred to Augusta State where he again had trouble fitting in.
At one point his team-mates discussed voting him off the squad.
Throw in an arrest for underage drinking and possession of a fake ID during this time, and you’d never believe this is the same man who has starred for both the Ryder Cup and Presidents Cup teams, capped off by representing USA at the Rio Olympics.
In March 2014, he won the Doral WGC event and proclaimed he should be considered one of the world’s top five players.
The then 23-year-old was chastised worldwide, but Matt Kuchar had sympathy for his team-mate.
Juchar said: “A lot of guys out here might think that, but he’s the only one with the guts to say it. Good for him.”
Reed plays down his old image, admitting two moments in Scotland changed his outlook on the game.
“At the Ryder Cup at Gleneagles after I put my fingers to my lips to quieten the home galleries when I birdied the seventh hole, I played my heart out for the team,” Reed admitted.
“I really don’t want to be portrayed as a bad guy, but that match against Henrik was a lot of fun.
“It was in Scotland whilst playing this year’s Scottish Open that I learned I’d be representing USA at the Olympics.
“It really got my blood pumping, knowing I would be going to Rio to represent my country, and I had a tough job getting my mindset back into finishing well at the Scottish.
“Playing Ryder Cup for my country at Gleneagles, then the Presidents Cup where we got back to the locker room with the trophy, that’s the feeling we want to replicate this week at Hazeltine.”
Ironically, it is old friend Bubba Watson, still on the outside looking in for the last spot in Davis Love’s team, who sums up Reed’s emergence as a formidable player.
“He’s grown up tremendously. When he came out he was a little mean, he was a little too confident. He’s still confident, but now he does it in a nice way,” Watson points out.
It proves that golf is a strange game – as no doubt his former team-mates at Georgia and Augusta will ponder when they see the black sheep of their teams turning up as a Hazeltine cheerleader.