Patrick Reed takes the low road in blasting Jordan Spieth, Jim Furyk

Patrick Reed is a guy who lives for the Ryder Cup, and that’s commendable. But throwing Jordan Spieth and captain Jim Furyk under the bus following his poor performance was entirely uncalled for.

Patrick Reed loves his “Captain America” moniker. He’s the guy wearing Ryder Cup gear at regular PGA TOUR events, and using his Team USA scorecard holder pretty much every week. He’s as fiery as they come – an American Ian Poulter – and his record in the 2014 and 2016 contests allows him to back it up.

Of course, that’s a knife that should cut both ways. When he’s playing well, he can talk all he wants. But when he doesn’t, that’s another story. Reed often wears his heart on his sleeve, for better or worse. However, when he put Jordan Spieth and captain Jim Furyk on blast after the Americans’ handy defeat at Le Golf National, he showed a wildly unprofessional streak.

Entering the 2018 Ryder Cup matches, just about everybody expected that Furyk would roll out the dynamic duo of Reed and Spieth. They went 2-0-1 together in their 2014 debut at Gleneagles, then 2-1-1 in a victorious effort at Hazeltine in 2016. They seemed to feed off each other in a way that brought out the best in both.

That made it a pretty significant surprise for Furyk to announce that Spieth would partner with Justin Thomas this week, instead. Their long-standing relationship has been well documented, and Thomas was making his Ryder Cup debut. Perhaps Furyk simply wanted to leverage that to see what type of ammo he had in the chamber, so to speak.

“I was looking at (Jordan) like I was about to light the room up like Phil in ’14” Reed said. “Every day, I saw ‘Leave your egos at the door’. They (the Europeans) do that better than us.”

Reed clearly didn’t see things that way.

Reed didn’t say much in the team presser at the course following the defeat, but he seemed to be in alright spirits. He even jokingly shushed the crowd after defeating Tyrrell Hatton 3&2, a meaningless victory as the Cup had already been clinched. However, he said plenty in a phone interview with the New York Times.

In the presser, Spieth insisted that Furyk had allowed all players to have their voices heard in their potential pairings. Specific to the duo splitting up this time around, Furyk fell on the sword even more himself, stating that he thought the Spieth/Thomas and Reed/Tiger Woods pairings gave him two solid teams, not just one.

Reed…well, he didn’t see things that way.

"“The issue’s obviously with Jordan not wanting to play with me,” Reed said. “I don’t have any issue with Jordan. When it comes right down to it, I don’t care if I like the person I’m paired with or if the person likes me as long as it works and it sets up the team for success. He and I know how to make each other better. We know how to get the job done.”"

If Reed “doesn’t have an issue” with Spieth, he sure has a funny way of showing it. He then took it a step further, calling back to Phil Mickelson’s infamous commentary after that loss at Gleneagles.

“I was looking at (Jordan) like I was about to light the room up like Phil in ’14,” Reed said. “Every day, I saw ‘Leave your egos at the door’. They (the Europeans) do that better than us.”

Who benefits here? Nobody, except maybe Reed in his own mind. But even if that’s true, it’s at the cost of literally everyone else in that team room, not just Spieth and Furyk. This is nothing more than complaining just to be heard.

He may as well have just said “Don’t look at me; it wasn’t my fault we lost!” It would have been just as effective – and professional.

Then came this whopper: “For somebody as successful in the Ryder Cup as I am, I don’t think it’s smart to sit me twice.”

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That, ladies and gentlemen, is a direct quote from Patrick Reed, who went 0-2 in his pairings with Tiger Woods this week, and by one account, may have shot 85 (or been pacing to it) on Saturday morning in the four-ball. Of the 15 holes Reed and Woods played against “Moliwood” (Francesco Molinari and Tommy Fleetwood, who went 4-0 in team play), Reed’s score was used just four times.

In the other 11 holes, Tiger made two birdies, eight pars and a bogey. You can do the math.

Listen, I get it. It’s the heat of the moment, and Reed was just an hour removed from a loss that he clearly cared deeply about. He may very well believe that pairing with Spieth would have been better for him, but that’s the problem. It’s not all about him. It’s about winning – or losing – as a team.

He did get one thing right in his comments, when he mentioned that the Europeans left their egos at the door better than the Americans. That starts with Patrick Reed. He wants to be Captain America, but maybe it’s time to just take a look in the mirror and be a better teammate.

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Two years is a long time between now and the 2020 Ryder Cup at Whistling Straits. That’s time for people to grow, and fences to be mended. But if taking this unprofessional approach is what we can expect from Reed when things aren’t going his way, it’ll be a long, long road ahead.

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