Someone tell this lad that The Ryder Cup is a team game.
Patrick Reed may well go out on Sunday and deliver a red point for America but there is a lot of team-work that needs to go into the tournament first.
Reed was teamed up with Tiger Woods in the final fourballs pairing of a morning that belonged to America. Jim Furyk’s men were 3-0 at one stage but Europe’s leading lights – Tommy Fleetwood and Francesco Molinari – prevented a whitewash.
Woods and Reed started well enough but found the Italian and Englishman in top form, and dropping a lot of clutch putts.
The clincher came on the 15th, though, with the match ALL SQUARE. Reed called over Woods to talk tactics. He later explained:
“We were just trying to figure out what we wanted to do. You know, it just was one of those that at the end of the day, we felt like the lay-up would have been a little better option.”
Rather than risk dropping his approach in the drink, Woods went conservative with his second shot from the heavy rough and ended up short of the green.
Reed then went for it and found the water. That combined with Woods playing it safe effectively gave up the hole and all they could do was hope the Europeans messed up to get a half.
Woods, playing safe, ended up getting par but Fleetwood put Europe 1 Up by getting a birdie. The American tactics fell flat and they ended up losing 3&1.
Francesco Molinari secures the first point for Europe against Tiger Woods and Patrick Reed with a 3&1 win.
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Following his round, Reed did not feel himself of Woods complemented each other out on the course. “The way you’re successful in best-ball,” he said, “is you have both guys in the hole, both guys having a chance to look for birdies and just seemed like we didn’t.”
Asked about form heading into the weekend, the US Masters champion said he had no doubts about himself but did not exactly back Woods up. He commented:
“I think the biggest thing is I felt like… I can’t speak for Tiger, but my game, I feel like I was hitting the ball off the tee really well.
“On top of it, I felt like I was in control kind of my golf swing. Biggest thing is we’ve just got to make some putts and just make a little bit bigger and better decisions.”
I can’t speak for Tiger, but I was hitting it off the tee really well. Thanks, mate.
As for Woods, he was playing great too, according to himself. Asked if he was going to work on anything over on the range, he replied:
“I’m not going to work on anything. My game is fine. My cut really wasn’t cutting off the tee today. I was hammering it. The ball was going far. It was going straight, but it was not cutting. I can accept that. That’s really no big deal. My putting feels solid.”
What of Woods and Reed on Saturday?
They’re up again, together, in fourballs action… against Molinari and Fleetwood.
