Patrick Reed

As we have expounded on throughout the year, there is a changing of the guard taking place on the PGA Tour that is being led by a furious youth movement of players that are not ready to wait for years of seasoning before competing for major championships. One of the more visible players of this movement is Patrick Reed, an ultra confident and somewhat controversial player that people either tend to love or hate. However, what is undeniable is the success Reed has enjoyed on tour at an early age. Following his miraculous come from behind victory at the Hyundai Tournament of Champions, he became just the fourth player in the last two decades to have won four times on the PGA Tour before the age of 25.

Reed has had quite the interesting rise to prominence on the tour and if you are like us, you may not have read too deeply into Reed’s background until recently when reporters chose to dig in a little deeper to see exactly where Reed came from and to see what was behind his turbulent past and struggles off the course during his college years. For those of you who missed it, we will recap it here briefly so that much of the animosity that gets pointed in Reed’s direction can be better understood.

Reed was born in Texas and grew up in Louisiana where he excelled at golf from a very early age. By age 17, he committed to perennial powerhouse, Georgia and entered a year early. His outward level of cockiness and arrogance rubbed teammates the wrong way and his ultra-competitive nature led to conflict with several teammates and even his coach. Other notable players on the team included Brian Harman, Russell Henley, Hudson Swafford and Harris English, all current tour professionals. While much of his behavior on the course could be overlooked, there were a couple of incidents where Reed appeared to cheat when playing in qualifiers with teammates that caused him to lose trust among the team. This was further exacerbated when equipment and money were stolen from the locker room. When Reed was confronted over having large amounts of cash, he claimed to have won it off of a professor. Said professor then denied having played with Reed in the stated timeframe.

What ended Reed’s career at Georgia were a couple of alcohol incidents, one of which Reed hired a lawyer to get dismissed, but also failed to tell his coach about, ultimately leading to his dismissal from the team. Reed then transferred to Augusta State, a smaller school with only golf as a Division I sport. While some athletes would have faded after such a tough freshman campaign, Reed thrived at Augusta St and led his team to consecutive NCAA Division I Golf Championships, beating out Georgia in 2011 to defend its title. Reed finished 6-0 in match play throughout the championships both years and dominated several players of prominence along the way.

We like having a guy like Patrick Reed on the PGA Tour. He is brash and confident and a winner. He comes to win on Sundays and we anticipate that he will have a lot of success on tour in the years ahead. Golf needs strong personalities like Reed to make the game more appealing to a wider audience. In sports, we need heroes and villains to root for or to root against. Too often in golf, players are programmed to say all the right cliche driven statements and mind the usual customs and traditions that go along with golf. It’s predictable and boring and makes too many players seem faceless and less relatable.

Reed has been making steady improvements to his play and is already one of the more consistent pros on tour having made all 12 cuts this season and also winning the Hyundai Tournament of Champions by coming back late in the final round to overtake Jimmy Walker. Reed is not the biggest hitter off the tee, but one of the best in overall course efficiency as he is high in the rankings of both strokes gained tee to green, strokes gained putting, and as a consequence, total strokes gained. He is a good iron player and scrambles very well so as with his personal life, he is good at working out of tough situations. His steady, all-around game works well at most courses making him a threat to win in nearly any tournament he enters. He has a high floor and a high ceiling which makes him work for GPP and cash game play on a weekly basis.