I can’t emphasize this enough. You need to read Shane Ryan’s piece on Patrick Reed. I’m not making this post to drive our traffic. I’m making this because just tweeting the link to this story does not do it justice. If you want to see the difference between actual writers and blogger guys like me, just read this piece. I may link it 50 times in this post. I’m going to highlight some of the best parts below, but don’t let that be a substitute to you actually reading the piece.
The highlights:
- Kicked off the golf team at Georgia for a variety of reasons
- Suspended at Augusta State for cheating in an actual event (!)
- Allegedly stole from the Georgia locker room
- Hated by his teammates at both Augusta State and Georgia
- Estranged from his parents for undisclosed reasons
#TourSauce:
“From the time he was very young, Reed brought an unusual focus to the sport, right down to the smallest details. When he was ten, he stopped wearing shorts on the golf course, both in competitive tournaments and range rounds, because he saw that the pros had to wear pants. In the brutal heat of midsummer, he’d be the only kid at a tournament in khakis, and even when he came close to passing out, he’d never succumb.”
At Georgia:
“That same fall, several items went missing from the Georgia locker room, including a watch, a Scotty Cameron putter, and $400 cash. When Reed showed up the next day with a large wad of cash, a teammate confronted him and asked how he’d come by the money. Reed said he’d played golf with a professor at the school and hustled him out of the cash. The player in question took this claim to the professor, who had no idea what he was talking about—it had been weeks since the man had played with Reed.”
Cheating:
“The news trickled around the Georgia golf community, though, and the cause of the suspension—confirmed by multiple sources—didn’t surprise the teammates who knew him back in Athens: Cheating in a qualifying event.
In 2011, he stopped hanging out with his teammates off the golf course completely. He also stopped cheating, and he was slightly more cordial with his teammates, but when I asked multiple sources whether this meant they actually liked him, the response was unanimous: Hell no.”
His teammates HATED him:
“Before the last round of his college career, in the national championship against Harris English, a group of Reed’s Augusta State teammates approached English—one of the most well-liked, easygoing players in the sport—with an emphatic message:
‘We want to win the national title, but we hope you kick the shit out of Patrick Reed.'”
Read it. Read the piece. In case you missed the two links above, here’s five more.