2015 Preview: Patrick Reed
Patty is a little pissed about that missed putt.
Welcome to the 2015 Golf Preview, where I’ll take a look at selected golfers and examine what to expect over the next twelve months. Today, we look at Patrick Reed.
The History
After a successful high school and college career, Patrick Reed turned pro in 2011 and earned his PGA Tour card at Q-School ahead of the 2013 season and with his wife Justine on the bag, he was able to get his first win at the 2013 Wyndham Championship, defeating Jordan Spieth in a playoff. Reed followed that up by setting the PGA Tour record for most strokes under par after 54 holes when he fired three straight 63’s at the 2014 Humana, eventually winning by two over Ryan Palmer, but Reed was really just getting warmed up.
The following month, Reed won at Doral against a monster field and declared himself as one of the top five players in the world, which as you might have expected, went over about as well as a lead balloon. After Doral, Reed didn’t really do anything noteworthy outside of a couple of top-10’s at Firestone and the Barclays, but he was able to qualify on points for the Ryder Cup where he partnered with Spieth and was pretty much the only positive thing about the U.S. side, going undefeated for the week. To wrap things up, Reed was disciplined by the PGA Tour for his use of colourful language in Shanghai.
I don’t think anyone had a more interesting 2014 in golf than Patrick Reed.
ESPN’s Patrick Reed Headshot
ESPN.com has a lot of great golf content, but their player headshots are, shall we say, a little outdated, with Ryan Moore leading the way. As such, I’m introducing the Ryan Moore headshot ranking system. Each player will get a ranking from 1-10, with 10 being the most outdated possible.
Here’s Reed’s headshot from ESPN:
So, maybe it’s because of the kind of year he had and how prominent Callaway features him, but I had no idea that Reed was once a Nike guy. I actually had to Google it because my first thought was that this was an old enough picture that Reed wore this to the shoot before he was signed up with anyone. He signed with Nike out of college in 2011, but switched to Callaway at some point during the 2013 season, so this really isn’t that old. I much prefer the TAXSLAYER sponsor on his current gear though.
1/10.
Why You Should Watch
In my 2015 preview of Billy Horschel, I talked about how he might be the most entertaining player on the PGA Tour, but man, Reed is right there with him.
- Great ball striker.
- Aggressive.
- #TourSauce for days.
- Quotable.
- 24 years old.
For years, people have been hoping for a player like Patrick Reed to come along and shake things up a little bit. Well, now he’s here and he’s got the game to back it all up, plus he’s going to be around for a long time.
Reed in one GIF
Oh, Patrick Reed.
We didn’t know it at the time, but before this happened at the Ryder Cup, Reed was taunted by the Scottish crowd for a short putt he missed the day prior.
Initially, we all thought this was just Reed being overly abrasive, but this really was the perfect response and it was even better when Reed went on to top Henrik Stenson in the match.
I have no doubt that Reed is going to win a bunch of tournaments on the PGA Tour in his career, but he was made for the Ryder Cup.
The Question
Is Reed ready to take the next step?
In my opinion, we tend to hype players up far too early in their careers and then get disappointed when they don’t appear to reach our lofty standards and there’s really no better example of that than Rickie Fowler, but in this case, Reed’s really done it to himself. I do think the “top five” comments were a little overblown, and I’m sure this wasn’t his intention, but now, there’s definitely an added layer of expectation on Reed that wouldn’t have been there if he had given a stock answer.
The fact is that for as good as Reed was in 2014, he still missed seven cuts and was a complete non-factor for a handful of other tournaments as well, which is completely normal for any player, especially one who’s still trying to find his way on the PGA Tour, but there are a lot more eyes on Reed as he enters 2015 and a lot of it can be traced back to his comments nine months ago at Doral. The next step for him, major contention and more overall consistency, is what’s required for him in 2015 and it’s going to be fascinating to see if he can pull it off.
At the very least, we know it’s going to be damn entertaining to watch.
AdamSarson.com 