Written by Stephen Moloney (www.twitter.com/TheCheeky9)
From the second that image of Patrick Reed doing a bit of excavation work in that bunker at the Hero World Challenge was beamed around the world and the ensuing scorching hot takes began to roll in online, the task of competing in this week’s Presidents Cup instantly increased in difficulty for Reed from hard to hitting-a-flop-shot-with-a-ball-that’s-half-submerged-in-a-lake-hard. The heckling, the ribbing, Reed knew it was going to be all ahead of him – and that was just going to be from his own teammates, for a start.
And, yet, from the moment he stepped onto that first tee to a gentle chorus of ‘boos’ on Thursday and proceeded to hit his opening tee shot into a bunker, things probably couldn’t have gone much worse than what they have done so far for Reed, with Royal Melbourne turning into a veritable ‘House of Horrors’ for the 2018 Masters Champion. As usual, he’s tried to rile himself up into playing better by engaging with the crowd and referencing the main source of their ammunition by, in fairness, doing quite a good impression with his putter of someone using a shovel, but, unfortunately for him – and Webb Simpson and Tiger Woods – it most definitely hasn’t worked so far. He’s played three matches – two sessions of fourballs and one session of foursomes – and lost all three of them, with yesterday’s 5&3 defeat to Hideki Matsuyama & C.T. Pan being the heaviest of the lot.
Then, as we’ve all seen to our utter disbelief, to gently place the cherry on the ‘misery pie’ that has been this week, Reed’s caddie/brother-in-law, Kessler Karain, got himself banned from today’s singles session thanks to an altercation with a fan who, allegedly, said “you f***ing suck” to Reed a short while after his loss in that very same fourballs match to Matsuyama and Pan.
Now, I’m not interested in acting as a referee and delving into the ‘nitty-gritty’ of the altercation because there is no ‘nitty-gritty’ to delve into – the spectator shouldn’t have said what he did, Karain shouldn’t have reacted the way he did, job done. How this altercation does interest me, however, is that I’m now wondering if, when combined with everything else that’s happened this week, will it serve as ‘the final nail in the coffin’, so to say, for the idea of Patrick Reed as being an almost guaranteed pick for American teams if he doesn’t automatically qualify?
Because if you think about it, Steve Stricker, next year’s Ryder Cup Captain, is right there in Australia watching all of this happen in the flesh as one of Tiger Woods’ vice-captains. And knowing the battle that he’s heading into next September when Pádraig Harrington brings his European team to Whistling Straits, you’d wonder what he’s making of all this? You know, if, for instance, the name ‘Patrick Reed’ isn’t in one of those eight automatic qualifying spots in the U.S. team’s Ryder Cup rankings next year, will Stricker look back at everything that transpired this week and think to himself, “You know what? Maybe we’ll have Captain America sit this one out.”
Because that’s Reed’s billing, right? “Captain America”? Well, if you combine “Cap’s” results from last year’s Ryder Cup in Paris, with this year’s Presidents Cup record so far (sans this year’s singles, obviously), from a total of six matches, he’s racking up a 1-5-0 (W-L-H) record. Now, I’m by no means a mathematician, but I know enough to recognise that a record like that leans less towards “Captain America” and more towards “Steve Rogers before the Super Soldier Serum”, i.e. the heart is there and the spirit is, undoubtedly, willing, but he’s not going to be helping take down Thanos anytime soon.
Of course, there might be some people who’d posit that if Reed goes out later on today and convincingly beats C.T. Pan in their singles match that it’ll somehow wave a magic wand and everyone will go back to thinking you have to include him because of his record in the singles (he’s currently 3-1-1 in Ryder Cups and Presidents Cups going back to 2014) but if I were in Steve Stricker’s golf shoes I wouldn’t be falling for that spell.
Because, ultimately, the Ryder Cup – just like the Presidents Cup is – is a team competition. And unfortunately for Reed, whilst he is, without question, an incredibly talented golfer, given his current form in team events and the fact that, more often than not, his actions both inside and outside the ropes end up courting the kind of attention which is of no benefit to a team or pairing that he might be a part of, IF he ends up relying on a pick to make it to Wisconsin, it might end up being the best thing for him – and, more importantly, the United States team – if Stricker leaves him out.
For whilst there is definitely an ‘i’ in ‘Patrick’, there continues to be – and will always be – none in ‘team’.
Title Photo Credit: ‘FTW! Golf’/USA Today