Patrick Reed outlasted everyone at LIV Dallas but he wasn’t only winner

Patrick Reed’s week at Maridoe Golf Club at LIV Dallas started with him laying out his plan to make the Ryder Cup team. It ended with the 4Aces drenching him in champagne after he outlasted Paul Casey, Jinichiro Kozuma and Louis Oosthuizen on the first playoff hole to capture his first LIV Golf title.

Reed opened the tournament with rounds of five under and four under to take a commanding lead into Sunday, but the 34-year-old struggled during the final round. He bogeyed five of his first nine holes to allow a host of players to get back into the tournament, but made nine consecutive pars to close the final round to set up a four-way playoff on Maridoe’s 18th hole.

Reed dripped in a birdie putt on the first playoff hole to clinch his maiden LIV victory and give him even more confidence that he can play his way onto Team USA by winning the Open Championship at Royal Portrush.

“We feel good,” Reed said after the win. “The game has felt really solid recently. Today, even though the score was high compared to where it should have been, it was kind of one of those days that when you don’t make putts, any little thing that’s off is going to cost you. The good thing is I had a big enough lead there to hold it together. But game feels solid. I’m looking forward to Portrush, but I’m really looking forward to next week going to Germany, DP World Tour event, keep this momentum going, win there, and who knows, maybe go on a run.”

Even if Reed were to win the Open Championship, he would still require a captain’s pick from Keegan Bradley to make the team at Bethpage Black.

The Open Championship at Royal Portrush hung over LIV Dallas from start to finish.

With the R&A awarding an exemption to the top player not already exempt in the top five of the LIV Golf standings after this week, a number of players entered the week with dreams of punching their ticket to Royal Portrush at Maridoe instead of needing to go to Open Qualifying.

Sergio Garcia, who did not enter a qualifier, entered the week fourth in the individual standings behind Joaquin Niemann, Jon Rahm and Bryson DeChambeau, all of whom were already exempt. Patrick Reed, who jumped to No. 4 in the standings with the win, already earned his spot at the Asian Tour’s International Series Macau event earlier this year.

Garcia won at LIV Hong Kong, but his game has been a mess ever since the Masters. Garcia could have put his Open exemption to rest a long time ago, but he has not finished in the top 24 in a LIV event since LIV Miami in early April. That opened the door for a host of players to potentially steal his trip to Portrush, including David Puig, who was in the driver’s seat to leapfrog Garcia entering Sunday’s final round. While Garcia scuffled to a 25th-place finish Sunday to earn zero points in the standings, Puig, who needed a T4 finish or better, shot two over in the final round to fall into a tie for 13th place and allow Garcia to make his return to the Open Championship.

“It’s going to be my second time playing at Royal Portrush, and it’s obviously nice,” Garcia said after the round. “It’s one of the goals that you have at the beginning of the year, to try to play as many majors as you can with the limitations that we get. I didn’t help myself very much the last three months, but I’m glad that I got enough work done in the first third of the year, I guess, in the first part of the season. I’m excited about it, and hopefully I’ll play well.”

Garcia played in every Open from 1998 through 2022 before missing the last two editions, but the 2017 Masters champion will be back at golf’s oldest major this year thanks to a win at LIV Hong Kong and Sunday struggles in Dallas from Puig.

With Garcia in the field, 17 LIV golfers are headed to Portrush, with 14 others heading to final qualifying on July 1.