‘Yes, dear!’ Reed’s caddie always knows best
Consider the grinding travel of a golfer on the PGA Tour, where you wake up and aren’t quite sure what city you’re in.
Then, throw in the mental strain, understanding your livelihood isn’t a guaranteed paycheck but comes from a golf swing you hope doesn’t implode.
Somewhere along the way, you hope to find that one good woman who understands such ups and downs, the long absences from home, and the latenight phone calls when she sometimes has to pick her confidence-broken man off the floor.
Or you can do what third-year pro Patrick Reed, anchored in a threeway, third-place tie after three rounds in the FedEx St. Jude Classic, did to secure marital bliss.
“I have the full package with me,” Patrick said with a smile after his Saturday round of 6-under 64 moved him to 8-under 202 heading into Sunday’s final round. “Nurse, wife, caddie.”
Indeed, it is a sight to watch Justine Reed, a 5-1, 102-pound — “If I’m feeling a little heavier, maybe 105” — blond beauty lugging her husband’s 40- to 50-pound tour bag.
But it isn’t for show. Justine, 26, a former golfer for Klein Forest High in Houston, knows her stuff.
“Justine knows my clubs better than I do,” said Patrick, 22, star of Augusta
INSIDE THE ROPES
State’s 2010 and 2011 NCAA national championship teams that were coached by Memphian Josh Gregory. “She reads greens really well. If I start to struggle around greens, I lean on her. She’ll give me a good read. Every time I don’t listen to her, I get in trouble.”
Like on Saturday when Patrick bogeyed Nos. 9 and 10 to drop to 4 under. Justine got her man refocused by making some good reads of wind, giving him good lines on what he called “solid” golf shots.
He went 4 under over the last four holes, including an eagle on the par 5 No. 16, which played 512 yards.
“When we practice together, she knows whatever I say is going to be the most aggressive as possible,” Patrick said. “She knows gearing back helps me. It’s why I’ve done so well this year, why we’ve done well today and yesterday, hitting a lot of 2-irons, 3-woods off the tee. We work really well as a team on and off the golf course. I feel like it’s a team that can’t be beat.”
It’s a relationship that started when Justine, who graduated from LSU with
Patrick Reed and his wife, Justine, who doubles as his caddie, walk off the course following the third round of the FESJC. degrees in health administration and nursing, was set up with Patrick by her sister, who was attending Baton Rouge’s University High (located on the LSU campus) with Patrick.
Justine came from a multisport background in high school, so last April before Patrick opened his 2012 season, she offered to become his caddie. So he loaded his golf bag to the max, including full inclement weather gear, and took her to a course for a round of caddying in 106-degree weather.
“I was able to do it just fine,” Justine said. “I didn’t want to show him any weakness.”
Said Patrick, “I almost died on the 16th, 17th holes. She came off the 18th hole like it was nothing, kicking and screaming. When she picked up the bag at Valero, I said, ‘Welcome to the big show.’ ”
The first three weeks with Justine on Patrick’s bag, he cashed checks totaling just more than $117,000. In July, in brutal summer temps at the True South Classic just outside of Jackson, Miss., she revived her dehydrated husband after he went woozy in a hotel room after the third round. He held up the next day for a 21st-place finish and a $26,700 check. Last Dec. 21, a few weeks after Patrick earned his ’ 13 PGA Tour card at qualifying school, the golfer married his caddie. Their working honeymoon in mid-January was at this year’s season- opening Sony Open in Hawaii. Patrick missed the cut, which for the first time in his career was probably a good thing.
“I was working as nurse in cardiology and in the ER after school and I saw myself working in a hospital administration position,” Justine said. “I never thought I’d be doing this, but I adapted to being a caddie really quick. It just feels natural for me.” Patrick thinks so, too. “Like (1994 FedEx St. Jude winner) Dicky Pride said, ‘You hate anybody that takes 100 percent of your paycheck,’ ” Patrick said. “But I love it. I don’t mind.”