Patrick Reed, who never looks controversial, found it once again on Saturday during the third round of the Farmers Insurance Open on the 10th hole of par 4, when he removed his ball from a built-in lie and took a free fall. The 10th part was of a roller coaster 18 in which Reed shot 70 and is tied for the lead in the final round on Sunday.
After his second shot on the par-4 10th hole on the left side of the hole baked down in the thick rough, Reed walks over there, bends over and picks it up. He claims it was embedded, although video evidence shows that it took a bounce after it first landed and did not jump more than 3 feet into the air again. For the embedded, the soil must have been insanely wet.
Reed said after his round that no one in his group or the volunteer standing near the ball saw it bouncing, and he looked to see if it had broken the plane off the ground.
After moving it, Reed called an officer of the line and had him stuck in the pitch with his fingers. The officer, clearly surprised that Reed had already moved the ball, confirmed that there was indeed a lip where Reed’s ball came to a halt for the first time and considered that Reed was correct in removing the enclosed ball. From there, Reed got a drop and up and down for par.
Reed was shocked that the video after the round showed that the ball had bounced and confirmed that it was ‘almost impossible’ for a ball to plug in (or embed) if it bounced at all. This raises many questions, and not the least of which is what lip he and the legal officer felt when it was ‘almost impossible’ for the ball to plug when it bounced.
Reed confirmed that the legal officer told him that everything was done ‘perfectly’ and that it was a ‘textbook’ dealing with a bad situation. It also appears that he also passed the blame on to the volunteer who never saw the ball bounce, as well as the rule officer who confirmed the embed. If it was an attempt to see how much space the legal officer would give him (he would not be the first one to do so), it was a success.
“If you had 100 people there, a bunch of fans out there and one fan said they’re reflecting on it, I would never have to put down a tea and even see if it was embedded,” Reed said. ‘according to best judgment and therefore you always call a rule officer, because at the end of the day they will have the best judgment over everyone. If they believe it’s embedded, then you’re going for what they say. ”
Reed said he would have done nothing else and considers himself a model for what players at the PGA Tour should do in such situations.
“It’s an unfortunate thing that happened today, but at the same time, it’s exactly what I would do every time, exactly what every player had to do,” Reed said. ‘You have to ask your playing opponents if they have seen if it’s a bouncing ball and if it crosses a danger line. Always ask them first, then you ask the volunteer, and then from there see if you at that point ‘you call a rule officer.
‘It’s unfortunate, but at the same time that the officials and everyone show up and say you did that textbook and did exactly as you were supposed to do, then that’s all you can do. I mean, if we There we are and we play, we can not see everything. Therefore, you trust the other players, other opponents, you trust the volunteers and you trust the officials of the rules. If they all say what we ” did is the right thing to do, then you go on and on. ‘
The whole thing was questionable for someone who had never had a run-in with the rules. For Reed? It borders on the indefensible, and the more he talked around, the worse it looked like it was going to get. Following the brouhaha on the 10th time, Reed made four innings in his next six holes before a birdie finally got him down at 10 and leveled the lead until Sunday.
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