A misunderstood master
Despite a run of success topped by a major title this year, Patrick Reed finds his intensity mistaken for unfriendliness
Having been there himself, Jack Nicklaus understands what Patrick Reed must be feeling. Early on the road to becoming the greatest golfer ever — his 18 major titles confirm it — Nicklaus was underappreciated, too. The better he played, it seemed, the less galleries appreciated him.
He wasn’t hated. But he wasn’t loved, either. Nicklaus looked lumpy and came across as equal parts cocky and grumpy. Was he? Not really. Perception, however, was reality then, just as it is now.
Like Reed, who goes into the U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills in New York as the reigning Masters champion, Nicklaus could play the game like nobody’s business. But he didn’t play it with charisma, or panache, and he was no matinee idol in the looks department. In short, he wasn’t Arnold Palmer. Before he became the Golden Bear, he came across as more of a golden bore. Worst of all, this fat college kid began beating Palmer, the people’s champion. That didn’t sit well with Arnie’s fans, of whom there were so many they came to be called an Army.
Nicklaus, who passed through Houston in early May for the 3M Greats of Golf exhibition held during the Insperity Invitational Champions Tour event, admitted he doesn’t really know Reed. Their conversations have only been small talk. But Nicklaus couldn’t be more ideally positioned to offer the controversy-dogged 27-year-old resident of The Woodlands sound advice on how to win friends and influence people while excelling on the PGA Tour.
Nicklaus to Reed: Keep winning on the big stage. Be a gentleman.
“That’s not a bad formula,” he said. “If people think you’re a good person, if you handle yourself well, they’ll eventually come over to you. I think that’s the way I always felt. I can only be me, and Patrick can only be himself. I’ll say this, he’s a good player. And every time I’ve met him, he’s had nothing but a smile on his face, a good firm handshake and a pleasant thing to say. So I’ll judge him on what I’ve seen.”
None of Reed’s peer-group rivals, of course, cast as singularly long an individual shadow as Palmer did when Nicklaus emerged as a worthy foil in the early 1960s. Jordan Spieth, Rory McIlroy, Justin Thomas, et. al., are immensely gifted, but they aren’t perceived as being Godlike, as was Arnie. Reed, though, lugs around the kind of weighty baggage with which Nicklaus would have been unfamiliar.
Public perception misguided
He and his wife, Justine, are estranged from his parents and sister Hannah for reasons that are complicated and, truth to tell, nobody’s business but theirs. He also was accused of being a golf cheat (and even a thief) as a youngster. He got kicked off the team at Georgia before moving on to lead Augusta State to a pair of national championships. And he has had to live down his infamous pronouncement of four years ago when he bragged, “I’m one of the top five players in the world. I feel like I’ve proven myself.”
While Reed had just claimed his third PGA Tour title in seven months, he hadn’t yet played in a major championship. Understandably, he would be roundly roasted for his braggadocio.
But, given his “Captain America” Ryder Cup heroics that followed — a closing birdie, his eighth of the day, allowed him to beat Henrik Stenson in 2014 and the stuff-of-legend 1-up victory over McIlroy in 2016 — capped by what transpired at the Masters this spring, which followed a second-place tie in the PGA last year, it’s clear Reed wasn’t talking nonsense.
He woke up in Augusta on Sunday morning with a threeshot lead and, when the day’s play ended, he was still perched on top by a stroke, having turned back serious final-round challenges from former world No. 1s McIlroy and Spieth, the only two players to have claimed back-to-back majors since the Tiger Woods era ended.
“I thought the golf he played there was terrific,” Nicklaus said of Reed’s Masters mastery. “He showed a lot of guts coming down the stretch. He had a lot of guys playing well around him and he stood up to it, did very well with (the pressure).”
Gary Player, another one of the 3M Greats, observed: “Patrick won in great style, and he behaved well. But I think the media were very unkind to him. One said he didn’t hug his wife. Well, he gave his wife one of the greatest hugs I’ve seen in my life on No. 18. Why say that when it’s not the truth? They were so mean to him. It was quite sad to see that.”
Reed told Sports Illustrated a few years ago, “I don’t want to be the bad guy. I just want people to realize how passionate and how determined I am, and how much love I have for the game of golf.”
Those who have gotten close to him, and it appears to be an intimate group, confirm it.
“Patrick’s old school every step of the way,” said Russ Paine, the long-time Houston physical therapist to the stars who helped pull Reed through a painful back problem during his spectacular coming-out party of 2013-14. “Patrick doesn’t look like Rickie Fowler or a Dustin Johnson. He’s not a workout fanatic guy. He stays in shape by playing more golf than anybody. … He’s out to win.
“He reminds me of (former Rocket) Mario Elie, who’d yell at his teammates during a game. During a match, the same as Mario was on the court, Patrick’s completely no nonsense.”
Not one to be outworked
Away from the course? “A great guy — I really like him,” Paine said. “Both he and his wife have been nothing but super-nice to me.”
Reed was obsessed with golf from an early age, after his dad, Bill gave him a set of plastic golf clubs soon after he was born. By 9, he was practicing all day long at Hank Haney’s golf ranch in McKinney, once saying, “I don’t think you can hit as many balls as I did without getting to be pretty good.” As a rising junior star, he became conspicuous for being the only youngster on the course wearing long pants. Why? Because the pros wore slacks and he fully intended to join their ranks.
But then as now, his singleminded intensity rankled his rivals. It surely contributed to his issues with college teammates, who found him aloof, sometimes arrogant and hyper-intense enough to flout golf’s sacred rules, although he denies he did.
A chit-chat guy he wasn’t — and isn’t. Reed and former PGA touring pro Jeff Maggert are both Carlton Woods members and were occasionally paired together late in Maggert’s career. But Maggert concedes he barely knows him, saying of Reed only, “Good player, obviously.”
“I do keep my ear buds in most of the time when I’m on the range, so I get it,” Reed said a couple years ago. “Guys usually know I’m working, so they don’t come up to chat.”
Criticism, in combination with others dismissing his A-list credentials, adds fuel to his fire. As Paine noted, Reed told CBS after his Masters victory that the doubters and the haters inspired him to keep the pressure at bay and his foot on the gas.
“Patrick said something like, ‘I was watching the commentators and nobody picked me to win. They all picked me to lose. I used that as motivation,’ ” Paine said. “That’s Patrick. Most guys, if they’re playing well, stay completely in the zone and shut everything out. This guy is the complete opposite. He pulls in all the information. He wants to know what people are saying about him, good or bad. He feeds on it.”
Nicklaus would tell you he was a bit the same way. There are worse role models to follow.