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Neither rain, nor wind, nor the need for a rule’s official could faze Patrick Reed during the second round of the Sentry Tournament Championship.
Reed used a stellar short game and deadly putter to card eight birdies and one bogey en route to a 7-under 66 at Kapalua’s Plantation Course. He trails defending champion Xander Schauffele, who made birdie at the last for 68 and a 36-hole total of 9-under 137, by one stroke.
Conditions shifted from placid sunshine in Round One to intermittent rain and pesky winds gusting up to 35 mph. It didn’t bother everyone. Rickie Fowler said he loves playing in the wind, noting “I feel like this golf course allows you to use your imagination.”
It sure fit the eye of Reed, who learned to cope with gusty winds growing up in Texas.
“The biggest thing was I had control of the golf ball,” he told Golf Channel after the round.
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Reed rallied after a rocky start that included a triple bogey on seven on Thursday, but Reed realized it was just one bad iron swing and a “fluke bunker shot” that he sculled across the green.
“I thought it was stuff I could easily fix and manage and not do again,” he said. “I’ve come a long way on learning what to do in the middle of the rounds.”
Reed played his next 21 holes in 9 under to grab a share of the lead. To do so, he abandoned his patented draw in favor of a fade mid-round and his putter took care of the rest.
“In the past I wouldn’t have done that. I’d have continued to try to hit the draw and it would’ve kept going right and I’d have kept on struggling, but I was able to flip it around there and let the putter do the work,” said Reed, who posted 72 on Thursday.
His putter masked some of his ball-striking woes. Reed has holed 278 feet, 4 inches of putts, his second-best total through 36 holes. That tally includes a 41-foot birdie at four to get the party started on Friday. Reed nearly chipped in at the fifth for eagle, then stuck his tee shot at the 184-yard par-3 eighth to 7 feet and rolled in the putt to go out in 32.
As the weather did a rinse-and-repeat cycle from drizzle to sunshine to a full-on downpour, Reed kept charging, canning a 14-foot birdie putt at 10 and lifting a short iron from 146 yards over the lip of a fairway bunker to 12 feet and running in that putt too. At 14, Reed lobbed his second shot from 45 yards over a bunker to the back fringe and used the backstop to draw his ball within 4 feet from the hole. Reed’s birdie gave him sole possession of the lead.
But one hole later, Reed ran into trouble and it required a call to a PGA Tour rule’s official. Reed flew his second shot at the par 5 into the penalty area and it took a search party to find it in the tall grass. A volunteer found the ball just before the allotted 3 minutes elapsed, but Reed noticed that in doing so his tball had moved.
“He went to separate the grass to look at the golf ball and then the golf ball moved and sank to the very bottom,” Reed explained to Golf Channel’s Todd Lewis.
Reed was the subject of a rules infraction at the Hero World Challenge last month when video replay revealed that his ball moved in a waste area and he was penalized two strokes.
In this particular circumstance, Reed was allowed to move the ball back to its original position without being penalized because an outside agency – the volunteer – had caused it to move.
“It’s pretty important for Patrick Reed to get it right at this point in his career and he’s going to have to get it right for a long time to come,” Golf Channel commentator Paul Azinger said, adding, “We’re going to watch him like a hawk with the cameras.”
So far, Reed is getting it right with his putter. He’s made 14 birdies through two rounds and one-putted 22 of 36 holes. He capped his birdie binge on Friday with a bounce-back birdie at 17, rattling in a 28-foot birdie at 17 to regain the lead.
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