SAN DIEGO – The ball will not lie.
It’s an NBA term best known for Rasheed Wallace, who was taken out of a game in 2012 for shouting at Goran Dragic, who missed his first free throw after what was Wallace. of the idea that was false.
The idea is that bad calling, bad management, bad reduction will ultimately be judged by karma, but, of course, that’s zero. Patrick Reed can be an outstanding golfer and someone who flies too close to the edge of the rules. It can be both.
However you navigate the cosmic divers, it was impossible not to add the mythical buildings to Reed’s day at Torrey Pines.
There is a complete correlation between “The Reed Ruling” and Sunday’s result, but whatever beats the 30-year-old saved himself by getting up and down for par on the awful 10th toll. On this front, the scorecard does not lie.
Reed, who was ruled and the fall later left the 10th green Saturday maelstrom created a media that followed all the way into the final round of the Farmers Insurance Competition.
“As I said yesterday with the rules officers, they said that they showed it upstairs and everything with me yesterday, that it was the protocols that I went through and -everything came up was the right thing to do, ”said Reed, after closing 68 which was good for her five-stroke victory.
It doesn’t matter if you believe Reed broke the rules, either intentionally or otherwise. Not now. His previous disappointments had created enough doubt that Saturday’s debate will do nothing more than kangaroo court.
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Don’t forget that not one, but two PGA Tour rule officials have stated that he did nothing wrong despite a replay that clearly showed golf ball Reed kicking after he hit the turf. Don’t forget that he went beyond what the rules require and demanded control from an officer on the spot. Don’t forget that he explained to anyone listening that his golf ball was rooted.
The public opinion was not on his side.
Reed is a difficult man to please. While that horizontal swing is quite repetitive and may be his best short game in golf right now, it goes against professional golf routines at every turn.
In 2019 at the World Challenge of Heroes there was a similar issue. Despite video evidence of the breach and a ruling that added two blows to his card, he pushed back at the moment, “my word is against their word. ”
If that’s not contrite enough, Sunday’s side-by-side comparison with Rory McIlroy didn’t do Reed any favors either.
Shortly after Reed’s snafu on No. 10 on Saturday, McIlroy had a similar incident. His second sight at 18th a hole came into the rough left and when the Northern Irishman found the ball, he thought it was rooted. Nobody saw it. Nobody saw him kicking. Like Reed, McIlroy took relief and moved on.
Video surfaced Sunday of McIlroy’s second sight, showing that his ball, like Reed’s, had been kicked. McIlroy was badly damaged after he reported the video after his tour, not because he took a wrong fall, because he didn’t, but because the rules mean more to nothing.
“Like everyone out here, the worst thing about golf is being identified as someone trying to get away with something or being identified with a cheater and that’s just not the way you want your reputation to be, ”said McIlroy. “I’ve never tried to get away with anything out here. I think I said at the time in golf that you’d rather be on the right side of the rules than the wrong side of them because that’s exactly what our game is about. Our game is about integrity and it’s about doing the right thing. I always try to do the right thing and hope people see that. ”
For those looking for the same feeling or philosophy from Reed you should prepare for disappointment. He waited for a message in his press conference after the tour and reiterated that he had done everything with the book.
“I’ve already got everything I need to say about what happened yesterday,” Reed said. “All I can do is focus on today and just listen to the rules that officials said, and they said I did nothing wrong.”
The Tour also confirmed at the start of Sunday’s broadcast that neither Reed nor McIlroy had done anything wrong, but there was a general consensus on social media that Reed had violated at least one relevant norm captured by one player.
“I wouldn’t put myself up and create a situation like that,” Xander Schauffele said when asked if he had ever been in a situation like Reed’s on Saturday. “If my member is rooted, I usually wait and call someone and kind of wait until everyone is on the same page, waiting to watch a video.
“Of course the boys’ speech isn’t very good, I believe, but it’s protected by the Tour and that’s all that matters, I believe. ”
After a full day of eroding Reed’s rule, many players agreed that he may not have broken the Rules of Golf but that what he did did not adhere to the unwritten rules (note the minimum case). Many question why Reed picked up the ball and put it somewhere else before the rule officer came to prove it was rooted.
It remains to be seen whether this locker room breach is handled within the boundaries. These types of unwritten breaches tend to go unreported, but what is certain is that Reed’s already iffy image has suffered from other self-inflicted bruises.
Whatever the outcome on Sunday, there will be some who will continue to criticize Reed, and with his history with the Rules of Golf that is pretty good. But how could Wallace bark from the other side of Torrey Pines ’18th green, the ball will not “lie down.”