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| Patrick Reed refused to buckle under pressure on Sunday. (USA Today) |
| Patrick Reed holds The Gene Sarazen Cup after winning the Cadillac Championship. (AP) |
Little did anybody know it might be a brand-new first name-just player who might go wire-to-wire to win Doral for his third PGA Tour win at age 23, allegorically slapping the guard sticker on his graciousness auto that peruses: "How's MY PLAYING? DIAL 1-800-EAT-DUST."
That's right, that is Patrick's diversion.
Assuming that you need to ask who Patrick is, you haven't been accompanying the adventures of the thick-forearmed, scruffy-confronted, neckband wearing Patrick Reed, who then again ignored and sweated through tests from the world's best to flame a last cycle 72 to go down Saturday's 69 and pack his third PGA Tour win in the previous seven months.
He not just joined the most limited of first-name records – just Tiger, Rory, Phil and Sergio have likewise won three Tour occasions by age 23 – he additionally turned into the most youthful champ ever of a WGC occasion. What's more he additionally let us know all, on national TV, that we shouldn't be amazed. In the wake of announcing himself a "main 5 player on the planet" Saturday, he was asked to illuminate on Sunday by NBC's Steve Sands. Quoth the stocky fella:
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| Patrick Reed holds The Gene Sarazen Cup |
Patrick Reed holds The Gene Sarazen Cup in the wake of winning the Cadillac Championship. (AP)
Furthermore subsequently finished the first-ever post-triumph golf tirade, just missing an early 1980s-Snl/eddie Murphy coda – "I'm GUMBY, DAMMIT!"
Some place, "Three Win" Jimmy Walker terribly nodded, tipped his cowpoke cap and said, "I'm very little for the talkin.' I'll see y'all at Augusta National. Great day, now."
Tune in, if Tiger Woods is going to transform 2014 into one long discourse of lumbar recovery sessions, and if Phil Mickelson is simply whittling wood until the Masters, and if Rory Mcilroy is still in a suspended state of anguishing investigation toward oneself, we should have an excitement calculate on the Tour. Reed, to his credit, gives it.
While most normal the young person to disintegrate on Doral's inconvenience laden test, to dissolve in the Sunday glare of a WGC occasion where all the gentlemen on the extent have truly exorbitant watches and the finest customized slacks, Reed wasn't having it. This is the fellow who posted three sequential 63s at the Humana Challenge in January, a scoring record that took the expression "playing golf your ball" to amazing statures. He's additionally the gentleman who hit one of the incredible shots of 2013, the gag down 7-iron from under a tree in a playoff with Jordan Spieth, hit to about 6 feet, to win the Wyndham Championship in August with an unrealistic, daring birdie.
So when Bubba Watson made his rushed to get inside two on Sunday, and when Welshman Jamie Donaldson made his improbable raced to get inside one of Reed, we all held up for Reed to split. What's more he did, kind of. He missed the green on 11 ... furthermore spared standard. And afterward he missed the green on 13 ... what's more spared standard. And afterward he missed a small putt for standard on 14 and – aha! – he was breaking, unquestionably!
Anyhow Reed, who has the sort of metal that saw him qualify six times for PGA Tour occasions through Monday qualifiers in 2012, again missed the green on 15 ... furthermore again spared standard. And after that discovered a fairway dugout with an unbalanced lie on 16 ... also again spared standard. And afterward discovered an alternate fairway shelter on 17 ... what's more again spared standard.
It was courage on showcase, it was guts on presentation, was it arrogance on showcase? His post-round confirmation of his spot in the diversion was scarcely shy of Lebron's Mount Rushmore, since Lebron shaved his rundown to four. At the same time is Patrick Reed, conceived in San Antonio, out of secondary school in Baton Rouge, La., and now on your TV screen scoring and winning and bragging, that great?
He was asked after the round to rundown his main five, since he presented the idea, and he ran with Tiger, Adam Scott, Phil, Dustin Johnson and Graeme Mcdowell. That is cool, aside from that is five as of recently and that doesn't leave space for Patrick Reed. Plainly, in any case he sharpening his gesture.
Generally on social networking Sunday evening, you could feel the bull's-eye being set on Reed's back. The Golf Channel's Arron Oberholser cautioned Reed that "the amusement has a method for humbling you." Hunter Mahan tweeted out, "I heard Patrick had an epic post-round meeting. What were a percentage of the highlights? Hit me back."
It seems like its on. It seems like Patrick Reed is here, he's unsettling quills, and he's gathering huge checks. What's more he's hitting the fairway his ball. This makes it fun.
SCORECARD OF THE WEEK
76-73-66-78 – 5-over 293, Tiger Woods, tie-25th, WGC-Cadillac Championship
What for the sake of gobbling fistfuls of Advil is happening here with Tiger Woods? He's up, he's down, he's strolling off courses, he's limping around courses, and he's not winning. No place close.
He played with unimportance the initial 36 openings, then surprised the Saturday night highlight reels with his third-cycle 66 and there he was, teeing off late on a Sunday, in the red, with an opportunity to calm the skeptics – the sort of cynics who buzz around safeguarding PGA Tour Players of the Year falling off five-win seasons.
View exhibition
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Tiger Woods flinches in the wake of hitting a shot throughout the last adjust. (AP)
Yet on the sixth opening, a clumsy stance in a shelter tweaked the back that created his mid-Honda stroll off a week ago, and Tiger played the last 12 openings strolling around Doral with all the smoothness of Oz's Tin Man. He peppered his post-round meeting with ta