AUGUSTA, Ga. — Patrick Reed’s putter is on vacation, he said, quite angrily, Thursday. Somewhere far from Augusta — location unclear. And if he’s going to do anything in this Masters tournament, “it needs to get on a flight and meet me here,” he said.
Don’t worry, he shot under par in the first round.
The reporter asking questions of Reed gave him every opportunity to feel good about his 71. Hey, that’s under par! You finished in the top 10! Reed wasn’t interested. Here’s how he summed up the day:
“Piss poor,” Reed said. “Pretty simple. Hit it fine, missed it in the wrong spots, and putted like a blind man.”
There’s some imagery for ya.
According to DataGolf, Reed lost about half a stroke to the field while putting, ranking him slightly worse than average but mostly in the middle of the pack. Plenty of pros would be happy with that performance on these tricky ANGC greens. But as ever, when everything other than the putter is working, it feels like the flatstick is on particularly bad behavior.
Reed gained at least two shots on the field with his approach play and another off the tee, making him feel like a round of 67 was out there for the taking. Once again, the reporter tried to reason with him that a 71 was still quite good.
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“I don’t care,” Reed said. “It’s not good enough.”
You won’t find any disagreement here. The No. 1 player in the world, Scottie Scheffler, scrapped himself around in a 68 while being mostly average tee-to-green. So naturally, Reed already feels a bit behind, solely because of his 14th club. The biggest issue, he said, was just getting the ball to the hole, leaving his first putt short on holes 1, 2, 5, 14, 15 and 18.
Patrick, when you’re having a day like that…
“You want to break it,” he said. “You want to break the putter.”
But you didn’t?
“No. I should have.”
Reed has been on a bit of a heater lately, so he’s allowed to be disappointed. He finished second at an International Series event in Asia last month, earning a spot in the Open Championship, before contending to win LIV’s tournament last week in Miami. So when he was striping it Thursday, it all had to make sense in his head. When another reporter arrived to make the same case, talking him into accepting a solid score, he finally acknowledged it, before delving into self-criticism again.
“Yeah, it puts me in fine position. Realistically, I gave myself a good look on 1, missed. Good look on 2, left it short right in the heart. Shocker. Hit it to 4 1/2 feet on 3, missed it. Three-putted 5. Made birdie on 8 and 9. Made bogey on 10. Missed a five-footer for birdie on 11. Had a 12- to 14-footer for birdie on 12, I missed. Had a 15-footer for birdie on 14, stopped right in the jaws short. Missed there on 18 right in the heart short, from 12 feet.
