Patrick Reed Reinforces The Ryder Cup Case Against Picking Patrick Reed
In spinning his "bilateral pneumonia" bout, "Captain America" offers another reminder that he should be left off the 2021 team roster
With so many world problems and a grand weekend of golf ahead, I hate even wasting your time on Patrick Reed’s latest tug-of-war with the truth. But a recap is necessary since Reed admitted he’s only playing this week’s Tour Championship to burnish his Ryder Cup case.
Yet in offering multiple accounts regarding his “bilateral pneumonia”, Reed inadvertently reminded us again of his past battles with the truth and personal responsibility.
To recap:
Prior to last week’s BMW Championship, Reed revealed to Golf Channel’s Todd Lewis that he was improving after hospitalization due to bilateral pneumonia.
On Wednesday of Tour Championship week, Reed told with Golf Channel’s Lewis that he battled COVID-19 but was cleared by doctors to travel as long as he did not go by plane.
GolfChannel.com posted an accompanying Rex Hoggard story reporting what Lewis shared on Golf Central. The story has since been taken down.
Yahoo Sports picked up the story where it remains and says Reed had, in fact, admitted to battling COVID-19. It is not clear why GolfChannel.com took their version down, however...
Reed’s Twitter account offered this strange comment on Wednesday:
So he didn’t have COVID-19 but he’s “not sure” if he had the Delta variant of COVID-19 because he was vaccinated?
Following his Tour Championship first round, Reed spoke to the assembled press and returned to his claim of only having been diagnosed with pneumonia. In doing so, Reed offered a new assertion: he was struggling to breathe, his life was in jeopardy, he started thinking about dying alone in a Houston hospital and, astonishingly, said he was not tested for COVID-19 until he was on his way out of the hospital.
The full exchange with reporters:
Q. Can you give us a timeline of your health? I mean, first of all, there was a report that you had COVID, but I couldn't really detect that from your statement.
PATRICK REED: Yeah. When I was, the statement came from the doctors and my team, to tell me exactly what I had. But I had bilateral pneumonia in both lungs, and that's what they were treating me in the hospital. And it was scary because it was in my lower lobes, which is where, a lot of deaths and people pass away from. So they were really monitoring that, and really the biggest thing is just continuing doing my breathing exercises and try to clear out my, really my left lung as much as possible, which it's improving, but we still, they gave me the go-ahead to fly and be at cabin pressure starting Monday.
So to be able to fly and for them to kind of allow me to be here and to play is obviously meaning I'm going the right direction. Now, I would think once I get back with this week, I go to the doctors and just kind of see where I'm at, but the way everyone on my team kind of makes it sound is once this week's over, I'm full go to be able to do exactly what I want.
Q. Were you ever diagnosed with COVID after the bilateral pneumonia?
PATRICK REED: They never tested me. I don't know.
Q. They never tested you?
PATRICK REED: No. I obviously I got tested when I was leaving and I tested negative. So that's always a positive. But, and really when I went into the ER and with the scans and everything they have done, did on my lungs and everything, their main priority was to make sure that we fought this pneumonia in both lungs because of how fatal it can be.
We fought but they didn’t test me. Kind like the old caddie saying goes, we shot 68 but he shot 77.
Suggesting emergency room doctors and nurses failed to administer the most obvious and necessary diagnostic tool given his symptoms? All to avoid admitting you caught a virus (at least) 4.8 million other Americans have also contracted? Pitiful.
Then again, this is the same person who complained about getting a Tiger Woods partnership in Paris when he privately campaigned for it. And even aired this grievance after Tiger carried his rather sizable stern around Le Golf National. So in that sense it’s a no-brainer to throw less-famous doctors and nurses under the bus.
There are also the examples of Reed lack of accountability in his various rules run-ins. Why should he? Even after the Hero World Challenge sand scraping farce, Reed received backing from the PGA Tour Commissioner and he was picked again for the 2019 Presidents Cup team.
Reed even deflected his shady Farmers embedded ball fiasco in January by dragging Rory McIlroy into it.
And never forget, if he’d actually cheated in the Hero, the lie would have been much better than the one I supposedly gave myself. What integrity.
While many get caught up in whose strokes-gained approach from 200+ fits Whistling best, or who’d make an ideal fourth member of the the Jag Pod, Reed’s latest remarks offer an amazing gift to Captain Stricker: this is a man who has not learned his lesson.
But character and the way you play the game should still matter in making team selections. We easily forget how the Ryder Cup was started as a goodwill exhibition and as a celebration of humanity.
“I trust that the effect of this match will be to influence a cordial, friendly and peaceful feeling throughout the whole civilized world,” said Samuel Ryder. “I look upon the Royal and Ancient game as being a powerful force that influences the best things in humanity."
The United States Ryder Cup team should be comprised of players who’ve demonstrated a modicum of civility and dignity. Given the opportunity, Patrick Reed always takes a pass, even in recalling how he checked into a modern hospital in a major American city, struggling to breathe, and claiming he was not administered a COVID test a day after telling a trusted reporter that he contracted COVID.
Patrick Reed has insulted our intelligence before. He will do so again.
While there are so many layers to this awful virus, a real role model would fess up to the experience and share a message to be mindful, get vaccinated, be grateful for what you have, hug your kids, etc. Patrick Reed is no role model, never will be, and cannot be trusted to represent his country without incident.
The 2021 team should be comprised of those who make their country proud by exhibiting skill, class, and sportsmanship under pressure. That’s not Reed. He reminded us yet again that despite all the passion, talent and patriotism, he cannot be trusted to uphold Samuel Ryder’s grand mission. Reed wouldn’t begin to understand it, before or after surviving his bout with COVID-19.
I’ve done everything in my power to not dislike this guy, but what a complete waste of human skin!
Thank you Geoff for reminding me / us why Reed is a complete fool.