Patrick Reed: Staying in US was easy option – but I feel I owe European Tour (2024)

Patrick Reed is often cast in the role of golf’s premier villain, but he is upgrading his status from panto villain to pride of Europe after jetting in for the BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth.

The Texan, 30, leads the Race to Dubai and is the only top American in the field for the European Tour’s flagship event which starts today with fans still locked out. Reed’s decision to buck the Stateside trend meant four hours staring at the walls of his hotel while awaiting the result of his Covid-19 test and will mean another two weeks’ quarantine when he returns. “I wouldn’t have felt right not coming over and supporting the European Tour,” he said. “The guys seem excited to have me over and I’ve always wanted to be a worldwide player.”

With a less restrictive bio-bubble and bigger baubles on offer on the PGA Tour, Reed, joint fourth last year, has not taken the easy option. Indeed, one scenario for Eurosceptics is Collin Morikawa, 23, currently second in the Race to Dubai rankings, winning the thing without playing a tournament in Europe. Reed, rightly criticised for moving sand from behind his ball in a waste area last December, says being big in Europe was always an aim.

He explained: “Ever since I was little I always wanted to travel the world and be known as a worldwide golf player, not just stay at home and play in the States. That would be the easy thing to do, with the purses we play for, the world rankings we play for and everything we have in the States. But that’s not who I am. I see myself as a guy who travels and tries to better my game and figure out different cultures, different grasses, different time zones to try to become a more rounded golfer.”

It was a heartfelt address and welcome in a year when the gulf between the two tours has been exacerbated by the lockdown. Reed’s decision drew praise from his European peers too. Justin Rose, who is thinking of moving back to England after a decade in the Bahamas and another in Atlanta, said: “I give him a lot of credit for always travelling and playing as much as he does. There’s an easy excuse for people not to travel at the moment. We are all using it as an excuse to not to get on the plane and do things if we don’t have to.”

Reed needed a sponsor’s exemption after missing the deadline, but has been a European Tour member since 2015, gaining honorary life membership courtesy of his 2018 Masters triumph. “It’s their biggest event and for what the European Tour has done for me I felt I had to be here,” he said.

This widescreen view is at odds with those who will argue that he sometimes fails to see the big picture. Earlier this year David Feherty, the former player-turned-TV analyst, said a Reed win proved there is no God. Hyperbolics, but there are also historic allegations of cheating from his student days, strenuously denied, and irrelevant probing into family estrangements. Regardless, he is in Surrey, heart in the right place.

The world No 9 is the top-ranked player in the field that includes Rose, Tommy Fleetwood, Tyrrell Hatton and defending champion Danny Willett. Fleetwood said he was over his play-off defeat to Aaron Rai at the Aberdeen Standard Investments Scottish Open on Sunday. “Aston Villa put an end to the sulking quite rapidly,” the Evertonian said of Liverpool’s shock defeat later that night. He added that Rose’s caddie, Gareth Lord, had also offered some pithy encouragement. “He said, ‘Got to be here [at the top of the leaderboard] to f*** it up,’ ” Fleetwood said. “I thought that was a good way of putting it.”

Rose, meanwhile, has had a year of change after ditching his Honma clubs and leaving long-term coach Sean Foley. “I turned 40 this year and maybe I was fully grown-up and ready to do more by myself and not have so much hand-holding,” he said. Foley is still on hand for tips but Rose said: “Why get a whole new set of thoughts from someone who has not seen you for three months?”

Rose has slumped to No 23 in the world after five missed cuts in the last three months, with only a share of third place at the first post-lockdown tournament and his 9th at the US PGA Championship as solace. “It’s not fun not competing out there, but it’s not been all doom and gloom,” he said. “I feel like I’m working on a bit of a bigger plan and prize at the end of it all.”

As Rose plans to spend more time in the UK, Mel Reid’s decision to move to the US has paid off. After winning her first LPGA title in New Jersey at the weekend, she lines up for the third post-lockdown major at the KPMG Women’s PGA at the Aronimink Golf Club in Pennsylvania.

Key groups to watch today
7.55am Aaron Rai (Eng), Martin Kaymer (Ger), Matt Wallace (Eng)
8.05am Patrick Reed (US), Lee Westwood (Eng), Tyrrell Harron (Eng)
12.15pm Tommy Fleetwood (Eng), Shane Lowry (Ire), Danny Willet (Eng)
12.25pm Justin Rose (Eng), Ian Poulter (Eng), Sam Horsfield (Eng)
12.35pm Bernd Wiesberger (Aut), Rasmus Hojgaard (Den), Matthew Fitzpatrick (Eng)
12.55pm Thomas Detry (Bel), Thorbjorn Olesen (Den), Thomas Pieters (Bel)
TV Sky Sports Golf from 11.30am

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