Self-described boring round of 67 fine by Reed
CHARLOTTE, N.C. – Patrick Reed is starting to feel like Patrick Reed again.
The 2018 Masters champion hasn’t tasted victory since driving off Magnolia Lane with the green jacket as he’s searched to recapture the form that led to his first major triumph.
This year, he hasn’t posted a top-10 finish in 11 individual starts, with his best being ties for 13th in the Sony Open and in the Farmers Insurance Open.
With his driver off line, his iron play erratic and his putter a bit on the cold side, all Reed has been able to do was work. And work. And work some more.
Last week, however, when he missed the cut with teammate Patrick Cantlay in the Zurich Classic of New Orleans, something started to click.
On Thursday, his scorecard showed something clicked. Reed shot a bogeyfree, 4-under-par 67 at sunlit Quail Hollow Club to grab a share of third place in the Wells Fargo Championship alongside Martin Laird, Adam Schenk and Nick Taylor and Dylan Frittelli. Rory McIlroy and Joel Dahmen led at 66. Jason Day was in a group at 68.
“I kind of got out of my way,” said Reed, who is looking to win his seventh PGA Tour title. “I stopped thinking about the golf swing and just started swinging the golf club and played golf shots. From that point I was able to go out and put the ball from point A to point B pretty well and I made some putts.”
Reed called it a boring round, but it’s the good kind of boring, and he’ll take three more boring rounds this weekend, especially when many of his rounds this year have been anything but boring, as he’s watched his golf ball heading from point A to point B but then veering off toward point C.
Frustrating, yes. Perplexing, yes.
Boring? No.
Reed said he was getting a little long at the top of his back swing and thus was getting disconnected from the rest of his action. With his team, Reed has worked until reaching his present state, where his swing at the top stays a little shorter and a little stronger, which allows him to explode through the ball while controlling the face of the club.
“My patience has been tested, but I don’t think it’s really as much as top-10s and stuff like that as it’s been where I felt like I’ve made some pretty good golf swings and I hit it and I’m like, ‘OK, that’s going to be good.’ And I look up, and the ball’s nowhere near where I’m trying to hit it,” Reed said. “Now, I feel when I make a good golf swing, I know where the ball’s going to go.
“I feel like the swing has been in probably the best position that the golf club has been in, it’s just now timing it up. The only way you’re really going to time it up is spend a lot of time on the range hitting reps, but at the same time going to the golf course and being able to transition that into hitting different shots, whether it’s off-speeds, fades, draws, flights.
“That’s the part that I was missing in the past, and now I feel like I’m back kind of being who I am.”