Patrick Reed skewers Augusta National hole, wants it to ‘disappear’

AUGUSTA, Ga. — Like many gamers in what within the early going a minimum of was a moist, windy and wild Masters, Patrick Reed was unable to full his opening spherical Thursday. When darkness compelled him and his enjoying companions, Sungjae Im and Kurt Kitayama, off they course, they had been two-thirds of the best way down the par-5 fifteenth. When play resumed at 7:50 a.m. Friday, Reed, who at that time was two beneath on his spherical and squarely within the hunt, had 80 yards left from the left tough, from the place he missed the inexperienced simply lengthy. He took two putts from there and made par. At the par-3 sixteenth, Reed flared his tee shot large proper, greater than 50 toes from his mark — “poor swing,” he stated later — and three-putted from the perimeter. Bogey.

Then got here the par-4 seventeenth, the place a 283-yard drive up the proper aspect of the green left Reed 171 to a back-right pin and straight into the blinding solar. Reed’s strategy was on line, flying straight over the stick, however lengthy. It bounded as soon as on the again inexperienced and down into the gathering space behind it, leaving him one of many hardest chips on the course, even for the proprietor of a few of the softest palms in golf. Reed’s bump-and-run try again up the slope stopped simply wanting the placing floor, and two putts later, he had made a 5.

The dwelling gap was even messier. Reed’s blocked drive burrowed into the trunk of a tree, forcing him to take an unplayable and main to a double-bogey 6. Reed had performed the closing three holes of his opening spherical in 4 over.

“A shock to the system,” he later stated of his morning’s tough begin. “Gut punch, for sure.”

But in his second spherical, Reed would punch again. In a few of the wickedest circumstances a Masters discipline has ever confronted, Reed made three birdies and simply two bogeys to submit a two-under 70, which tied for the second-lowest spherical of the day (Ludvig Aberg managed a 69) and was greater than 5 strokes higher than the sphere common. At day’s finish, Reed had climbed again to even par for the match and 6 off the lead. The 2016 green-jacket winner was again within the combine.

Following his second spherical, Reed supplied an in depth deconstruction of the 21-and-change holes he had performed. He stated he was happy with how he managed his recreation within the gusts, throttling again on some tee photographs to guarantee he discovered the green and committing to membership alternatives. “It’s very easy to get guidey when it gets windy like this, especially around a golf course like this,” Reed stated. “When that happens, Augusta National just absolutely will destroy you.”

Like the remainder of the sphere, Reed had his ups and downs Friday, however one gap particularly caught in his craw: how the seventeenth had handled him on his first go-around.

“Bad break there,” he stated. “Felt like I played 17 exactly how I wanted to.”

But Reed didn’t depart it there.

“One night, 17 on this golf course is going to disappear, and I’m going to be the one that does it,” he stated. “I hit an ideal drive this morning, hit the iron shot precisely how I needed to and I used to be nearer to 18 tee field than I used to be 17 inexperienced.

“Those things are what drive me nuts is hitting quality golf shots and walking off with bogey.”

Reed isn’t the primary participant to tweak the seventeenth gap — heck, even the course’s designer, Alister MacKenzie, thought the penultimate gap can be an acquired style, due to the low-running strategy shot for which its sloping inexperienced calls. “Until players have learned to play the desired shot,” MacKenzie wrote, “this will undoubtedly be one of the most fiercely criticized holes.” In 1999, when the outlet was lengthened by 25 yards and in addition narrowed, not all gamers liked the adjustments, contending that the inexperienced was too extreme to maintain with a mid-iron. “Seventeen is ridiculous,” three-time champion Gary Player stated that 12 months. “Bobby Jones would turn in his grave.”

Thus far this week, the seventeenth is enjoying because the ninth-toughest gap with a 4.204 scoring common (as of noon Saturday). It has yielded one eagle, 12 birdies and 50 bogeys or worse.    

Reed started his third spherical at 1:35 p.m.. enjoying alongside Adam Schenk. He bogeyed the primary gap, birdied the second and as of this writing was nonetheless six off the lead.

Alan Bastable

Golf.com Editor

As GOLF.com’s govt editor, Bastable is chargeable for the editorial route and voice of one of many recreation’s most revered and extremely trafficked information and repair websites. He wears many hats — modifying, writing, ideating, growing, daydreaming of at some point breaking 80 — and feels privileged to work with such an insanely proficient and hardworking group of writers, editors and producers. Before grabbing the reins at GOLF.com, he was the options editor at GOLF Magazine. A graduate of the University of Richmond and the Columbia School of Journalism, he lives in New Jersey together with his spouse and foursome of children.