The Reed Rules Saga, Files: Calls For An Intervention, Fans Need To Back Off And Monahan Weighs In
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It’s no “mashed potatoes.”
Twenty-four hours later, Sunday’s “cheater” yell remains a shocker in a sport largely heckle-free. And totally predictable given Patrick Reed’s lack of a legitimate explanation for his cheating episode at the 2019 Hero World Challenge.
The outburst was surprising for the event, home to chill Maui crowds.
Brentley Romine on what was said and when during the 2020 Sentry.
Randall Mell writes for Golf Channel on the need of Team Reed to host an intervention due to overall point-misser tendencies.
Because this isn’t even really about Reed’s welfare. It’s about where the game is being further pushed if he doesn’t admit his need for forgiveness and seek some sort of absolution. It’s about how even reasonable golf fans are willing to accept heckling when it’s aimed at a player who is so remorseless in his indiscretion.
The sport is in trouble when heckling can be justified as defense of the game’s honor.
Michael Bamberger had a different view of “the heckle heard ‘round the world”, saying it’s the job of fans to save the sport by remaining genteel:
If golf is on the road to anything goes, on the part of players or spectators, the professional game will be on life support before Tiger gets his 18th major.
Ultimately this all ignores what I see as equally important: has the lack of any significant punishment for Reed increased the likelihood of more fan incidents? We considered this going into the Presidents Cup, and now we know how those crowds treated Reed (not well).
A second high profile episode in his first PGA Tour start of 2020 now exists during a sudden death playoff. And his case is closed. Commissioner Jay Monahan speaking in Maui, as reported by Dave Shedloski at GolfWorld.com:
“Golf is a game of honor and integrity, and you've heard from Patrick,” Monahan said. “I've had an opportunity to talk to Patrick at length, and I believe Patrick when he says that [he] did not intentionally improve [his] lie. And so you go back to that moment, and the conversation that he had with [rules official] Slugger [White], and the fact that a violation was applied and he agreed to it, and they signed his card and he moved on. To me that was the end of the matter.”
Given that Reed appears to have gotten away with something in the eye of most fans and PGA Tour leadership, it’s easy to envision many more fan episodes.
Oh, and he video, if you missed the 2020 Sentry:
Golf Central’s discussion of Reed’s issues with fans:
