Gentleman’s game best behavior?

Brennan: US Cup team’s reaction embarrassing

For U.S. men’s golf, the embarrassment is flowing like the Europeans’ champagne. Humiliation on the course has been followed by humiliation in the news. First, the U.S. Ryder Cup team was soundly defeated over the weekend by Europe 171⁄ to 101⁄ Then, the Americans opened their mouths and things really got bad.

Patrick Reed, who always appears to be about one minute away from creating his next controversy, threw U.S. captain Jim Furyk under the bus when he told The New York Times on Sunday that he was “blindsided” by not playing with Jordan Spieth after the duo’s past success in the Ryder Cup.

Reed said he wanted to be paired with Spieth but Spieth didn’t want to play with him, so Reed got Tiger Woods by default. This burden apparently was just too much for Reed to bear; he and Woods lost both of their matches as Tiger was terrible at another Ryder Cup, going 0-for-4, while Reed finished with a 1-2 record.

“The issue’s obviously with Jordan not wanting to play with me,” Reed told the Times.

No, that’s not the issue, according to a member of the U.S. team who wished to remain anonymous.

That person told the New York Post that Reed wasn’t blindsided at all and that he begged to play with Tiger.

Boys, boys, boys. Talk about making us all proud: ladies and gentlemen, your 2018 U.S. Ryder Cup team.

Everyone seems to be handling losing so spectacularly well, aren’t they? If I didn’t know better, I’d think they were a bunch of spoiled brats.

It appears the Americans are better at pointing fingers than they were at hitting fairways in Paris over the weekend, and they seem to be singling out one guy: Reed.

The New York Post source said Reed would have shot 83 on his own ball Saturday and had no clue how to play team golf.

Not surprisingly, Reed, the defending Masters champion, saw things differently.

“For somebody as successful in the Ryder Cup as I am, I don’t think it’s smart to sit me twice (both Friday and Saturday afternoon),” he told the Times.

Although Reed and Spieth had a record of 4-1-2 as partners in two previous Ryder Cups, there were rumblings that they weren’t getting along of late. So in Paris, Spieth moved on to Justin Thomas, going 3-1, leaving Reed stuck with Tiger and not very happy.

In the post-match news conference Sunday, when they were asked about their split, Spieth quickly replied, “We were totally involved in every decision that was made. Jim allowed it to be a player-friendly environment.”

Reed didn’t get a chance to answer the question, so he unloaded later on the phone to the Times.

“I think Jordan could see in my eyes that I was about to light up the room like Phil (Mickelson) did in ’14 (blasting captain Tom Watson after that U.S. loss), and that’s why he jumped on the answer,” said Reed, who maintains that he didn’t have any say in the pairings.

Meanwhile, there is late word that two other U.S. Ryder Cup players, Dustin Johnson and Brooks Koepka, did us all proud by having to be separated Sunday night while visiting the European team room.

So far no one is blaming that one on Reed. At least not yet.