Close sidebar

Reed has found himself embroiled in another scandal.

Patrick Reed has denied cheating at the Farmers Insurance Open after lifting a ball that was later revealed to have not been embedded.

The American golfer has again found himself at the centre of controversy, after being found to have illegal moved sand behind his ball in a waste area at the 2019 Hero World Challenge.

On this occasion, he lifted a ball after claiming it was embedded, but CBS’ broadcast showed the ball bounce once before landing int the rough.

Patrick Reed.

Reed explained in his post-round interviews that he had asked the hole volunteer, his two playing partners and their accompanying three caddies if they had seen the ball bounce, to which they all responded no.

Brad Fabel, a PGA Tour senior official determined that the ball had not bounced after checking the indentation left in the ground, allowing Reed to take relief.

‘It doesn’t help the pace of play.’

The 2018 Masters champion lifted the ball before calling over a rules official, saying he did so in an attempt to not slow down the golfers behind him.

Reed

“If you sit there and you mark it or if you don’t mark it and you wait for a Rules official, it doesn’t help for pace of play purposes for groups, whether they’re behind you or you’re keeping up with the group in front of you.

“So a lot of the times, the main procedure that I’ve always done is, as well as what a lot of the other players do is they mark the ball to check first and if they feel that it is broken, they either go ahead and take the relief or they call over a Rules official, which, with the Rules of Golf, I always call over a Rules official,” Reed told the Golf Channel.

Reed took to Twitter to defend himself, explaining that Rory McIlroy did the exact same thing without calling a rules official over, although the Northern Irishman’s ball was in fact embedded.

While Reed has come under criticism before for skirting the rules, senior writer for the Golf Channel Rex Hoggard has supported the controversial golfer, claiming he did nothing wrong.

Related posts

Scottie Scheffler looking for more from consistent season ahead of Scottish Open

Rory McIlroy moves on from US Open near-miss in confident mood ahead of the Open

Richie Ramsay and Robert MacIntyre aiming to bounce back at Scottish Open

This is a cookie notice. You can replace this cookie notice easily using the theme options from within your WordPress control panel. It will only appear once, with acceptance of the form stored locally.