Patrick Reed Continues To Bulldoze The Spirit Of The Rules
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Apparently no one told Patrick Reed to not touch the ball unless absolutely necessary. Golf’s like soccer that way.
And you certainly don’t do anything around the ball that could look like you are improving your lie. At least, in the old days before the PGA Tour transitioned to a players-first culture when Tim Finchem retired and marketers took over the executive ranks.
So even with an image-killing incident at the 2019 Hero World Challenge and other run-ins with lie improvement, Captain America has resumed his assault on the most important rule of all: playing the ball as it lies.
Sadly, his 2021 Farmers Insurance Open third round actions were not denounced by the PGA Tour in any way. Official Ken Tackett, who has stood down Bryson DeChambeau’s more absurd relief requests, was debuting in a new role for CBS that will see multiple rules staffers sit in to explain situations. Just a half hour into the new role he was put to a test and mopped up for Reed, sadly. In his defense, Tackett’s paycheck comes from the players. He technically works for Patrick Reed and a cult of personality based in Florida that believes PGA Tour golfers are above golf’s rules. Still, that Tackett could not call out Reed’s premature touching of his ball despite the incredulous reactions of CBS’s broadcast team, has a nefarious aging very poorly.
If you were not watching or following on social media this all sounds a tad silly so we’ll review the facts below for posterity. But there has been a great deal of focus placed on the way Reed’s ball bounced and then purportedly embedded. It is very true that it was almost impossible to embed and therefore need relief. However, Reed was clearly told by a volunteer that she did not see the ball bounce. Fine.
But any elite golfer does not engage in what Reed proceeded to do next: pick up the ball and drop it aside while declaring it embedded, but wanting a second opinion too. If it’s even possibly embedded, you mark and slightly lift up, holding the ball with two fingers to replace it as it sat, and do this preferably under the supervision of a playing partner or official.
Instead, this is what happened:
A careful or proper approach did not happen because Patrick Reed has a complicated relationship with playing the ball as it lies. Especially since after an incident like Saturday’s where he’s (reportedly) told his actions were “textbook,” as he claimed in post round interviews. (A follow-up interview of PGA Tour rules official John Mutch confirmed this to Golf Channel.)
Let’s review some of the evidence, starting with the tape of Reed approaching his ball and starting off ok by yelling to his playing partners he was checking for an embedded lie—but then spiraling from there.
The volunteer was wrong, the ball did bounce and while that was an unfortunate mistake, Reed picking up the ball as quickly as he could AND discarding it, instead of holding it in his fingers to replicate the lie should it not be embedded, suggested he had no intention of ever playing from that lie.
By the time rules official Brad Fabel arrived, there was nothing much for him to look at but the “lip” of the embed he apparently detected under finger after having asked where the ball had gone.
Then there is the bounce issue. The PGA Tour was supposed to have a rules official monitoring telecasts and this would have been a fine moment for that official to radio in that the tee shot bounced. This would signal that Reed’s ball probably did not embed. However, everything transpired quickly and with Reed having moved the ball, it may have all been moot.
The bounce shows an embed was highly unlikely:
After the round CBS stayed on many minutes past their allotted time to break down the situation and wait out Reed, who was busy on his cell phone. The entire time the CBS on-air was skeptical of the story and claims, including lead announcer Jim Nantz who interviewed Tackett after hearing Reed’s case. Tackett made an even less compelling case that Reed had conducted himself professionally the second time around.
Jay Rigdon at Awful Announcing covered the first effort just 35 minutes into the telecast, which was also did not inspire confidence.
Twitter was also not kind to the on-air official.
The quibbling will continue and Reed will have to live with the consequences. But make no mistake: he has openly exhibited a contempt for the spirit of the rules. The PGA Tour has not given any indication this is a problem.
In the good ole days this would have just been one of those “silly rules of golf” things that people could have mocked. However, with legalized betting and the PGA Tour’s hard push of that new revenue source, a cavalier approach to the rules and the players who bend them will ultimately prove disastrous.
