Be honest with me and with yourself: If you could lie and cheat your way to more money than you make at your job, would you do it?

I’m not talking about fudging an expense report or not clocking out at 3:30 p.m. to watch your kid play a basketball game when you were supposed to be at work until 5:00. I’m talking about lies and cheats that move hundreds of thousands of dollars that you weren’t entitled to. Would you do that?

PGA Tour professional Patrick Reed does it regularly, apparently without a trace of remorse or a moment of introspection, and he does it with the explicit support of his employer. It’s easy to understand why when you think about it, but first, a quick primer on Reed the man:

  • Reed’s spotty reputation goes back to his college career, where it is alleged that he stole a watch, an expensive putter and some cash from an opposing (wealthier) player’s locker.
  • The same link describes an incident in the same competitive season where Reed is alleged “to have hit a ball far into the rough. When he approached the spot, he found another ball sitting closer to the fairway, and was preparing to hit it when several of his teammates confronted him. Reed pled ignorance, but the other Georgia players were convinced he had been caught red-handed trying to cheat.“
  • There is no need to bother explaining how Reed dug a path to his ball in 2019 at the Hero World Challenge, since Youtube has it covered:

Even satirical golf commentators had the right take on what Reed did in that sand trap:

Smash cut to this weekend’s Farmers Insurance Open, contested at the same golf course which will host the 2021 United States Open Championship, i.e., the holiest of holies of United States professional tournament golf. Reed won the tournament by five shots, but not before treating us to another “did he or didn’t he” rules mess:

On Saturday, nursing a lead as the tournament hurtled toward the money holes, Reed duck-hooked his approach out of a bunker on the 10th green into shin-high spinach, and the following disaster ensued:

Reed stated that his ball had plugged into the turf because no one saw it bounce, and therefore he was entitled to relief. Except, it’s much more sinister than that. Reed got to his ball before a rules official could get there, PICKED THE BALL UP AND CAST IT ASIDE, and then marked the “spot” where he thought the ball had come to rest. The verdict on this was swift in real time, and harsh:

Indeed, Reed took a no-penalty drop, pitched onto the green and sank his par putt. No harm, no foul. The next 24 hours were, um, fraught:

So, of course, Reed went out on Sunday, shot an essentially flawless round of 68, and body-bagged the likes of Tour luminaries like Jon Rahm (72) , Rory McIlroy (73) and lesser light Xander Schauffele (69). It might not also shock you to learn that some of Reed’s peers had less-than-flattering things to say about Reed’s loose relationship with the Rules of Golf:

Well then.

The greatest sin of a sportswriter is to try to make himself part of the narrative. That’s especially true here. My competitive high school and college golf careers were the opposite of remarkable. But no matter how pedestrian my play was, I won’t back off saying this: Any time I asked for relief, I never touched my ball until a fellow competitor or a rules official said I could.

So why isn’t the PGA Tour stepping in here? Why isn’t the governing body of these tournaments “protecting the field” and “upholding the integrity of the game?” I mean, what about the children?

You won’t be shocked to learn why.

Patrick Reed, for all of his obnoxiously wild flouting of not only the Rules of Golf but basic decency and having a soul, is must-see TV.

Reed’s recidivist abuse of the game’s rules — the tenets that make so many “golf guys” clutch their pearls and bow — is the stuff of villains. Must I really direct your attention to the way villains sell?

The PGA Tour would be straight up insane to intervene in Reed’s habitual flouting of the spirit of the game. Do you really think that a two-shot win by Rahm or McIlroy or Viktor Hovland would have brought people into the tent on Sunday? Look around you. Golf is DYING.

We have reached that terrible point where the PGA Tour would rather fall asleep with Patrick Reed than sleep alone.