Patrick Reed’s latest rules controversy, explained

Golf fans are furious.

Welcome to FTW Explains, a guide to catching up on and better understanding stuff going on in the world. Today, we’re covering what’s going on in the third round of Farmers Insurance Open.

If there was a question about whether a golfer broke the rules or not at a PGA Tour event, it would be noteworthy for sure.

But when it involves Patrick Reed — known for being viewed as golf’s biggest villain and embracing it — it’s a really big deal to golf fans.

Remember, he was caught breaking rules twice at the Hero World Challenge in 2019 and was penalized for a violation. There have been past accusations of Reed improving his lie multiple times.

And on Saturday, Reed found himself at the center of another rules controversy. Let’s break it down.

What happened this time?

Reed — the co-leader in the third round at Torrey Pines — was at No. 10 when he took his second shot from a fairway bunker. It landed near the cart path and he picked the ball up after letting everyone know he was going to check it.

Wait, really?

Yes.

Why? Aren’t you supposed to play it as it lies?

Reed was trying to claim that his ball had been embedded — stuck in the ground in particularly wet conditions — which would give him a free drop without penalty.

Did Reed’s ball really get embedded?

Here’s where there’s some questions about what happened: Reed asked volunteers if the ball bounced first and when he heard it hadn’t, he figured it was embedded.

But it did bounce?

Replays showed it did.

Uh-oh.

Yeah. Reed called over a rules official, who felt a hole in the ground where the ball had landed and confirmed that it was an embedded ball, giving Reed a drop. There was no penalty.

Did Reed have anything to say about this?

You bet he did:

But what about picking up the ball before it could be examined?

Here’s what Reed said (as transcribed by Golfweek):

Yes, because you sit there and when you have three players including yourself three caddies and a volunteer that’s within five yards of that golf ball and no one says it bounced, you’re gonna mark it in check see if the ball’s embedded, you know, that’s what every player does if the ball if no one sees a bounce they see that.

You know looks like it’s broken the plane, the ground you mark the ball and you pick it up first and then when you see that is embedded that’s when you always call rules official over no matter what you’re doing to take the drop to make sure you’re doing the drop correctly.

How about a rules official?

Good question! Here’s John Mutch, via Golfweek:

“I wanted to know if he saw the ball bounce and neither he nor his fellow competitors saw the ball bounce. It’s pretty clear watching the video that he got to within 10 yards of the ball and asked the volunteer who was standing right there, ‘Did it bounce?’ and the volunteer said it did not bounce. So it was reasonable for him to conclude that that was his ball, it did not bounce and he was then entitled to see if it was embedded.

“He operated the way the rules permit him to operate.”

And PGA official Ken Tackett, who was part of the CBS broadcast (and this includes the replay!):

So because it was declared “embedded,” that’s that?

Yup. But golf fans are pretty mad about the whole thing:

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