Man vs. machine in Mexico: Patrick Reed defeats DeChambeau

With all his flaws, Patrick Reed overtakes Bryson DeChambeau at the WGC-Mexico Championship.

Who would you root for in a golf tournament between a man and a machine? If the man was Patrick Reed, would your rooting interest change?

That was the choice confronting fans over the final holes of the WGC Mexico Sunday afternoon at Chapultepec Park in Mexico City.

The finish pitted Patrick Reed, who is so completely human that he has spent most of the past four months fending off allegations that he cheats, against Bryson DeChambeau, whose fondness for all things mechanical is well-documented.

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In the end, man, which is to say, Reed, won due to his superiority in the least manly but most artistic aspect of golf, the ability to accurately manipulate a ball across 20 feet of closely mown turf into a four and a quarter-inch diameter hole.

When it came down to the critical few holes, nothing – not DeChambeau’s devotion to mechanics, not the scathing takedowns delivered by Peter Kostis or Brooks Koepka, not the aftermath of the famous November sand trap incident – could overcome Reed’s focused putting artistry.

Statistically, the data distinctions between the two final competitors Sunday provided enough clarity to satisfy even Dechambeau’s zest for analytical certainty.

In the most mechanical golf skill; productivity off the tee, Mr. Machine had the decided edge. For the four rounds at Chapultepec, DeChambeau gained 5.99 strokes on the field thanks to his play from the tees. Against Reed, who fumbled his way to a -1.01 Strokes Gained score off the tee, his margin ballooned to a hefty seven strokes.

It would require a mammoth dose of creativity for any human, no matter his or her moral credentials, to spot a machine seven strokes off the tee and win.

The task was even more difficult because, as DeChambeau’s data will reveal, he also won the approach game. DeChambeau added 2.33 strokes against the field thanks to his approach shots; Reed added just 2.00 strokes.

But when the game moved onto or around the greens, and imagination replaced replication as the dominant factor, man assumed command. Reed’s approach game netted him 2.32 strokes on the field, and won back about 2.9 strokes against DeChambeau’s far more ordinary recovery game.

That still left Reed the better part of four and one-half strokes behind DeChambeau. But with a putter, Reed displayed all the creative aspects that make humans so, oh, let’s say lovable. On Chapultepec’s notoriously uncertain poa annua greens, he piled up an 11.83 Strokes Gained score, easily leading the field both in that area and in putts per greens in regulation.

On Sunday, Patrick Reed navigated the course in 27 putts, with one one-putting the greens, three in the final four holes. DeChambeau needed 30 putts. More critically, nursing a two-stroke lead coming off the 14th green, he required nine putts to get home. Reed covered the same distance in five.

That two-stroke advantage DeChambeau had approaching the 15th tee looked solid at the time. He had birdied four of the first five holes on the back nine, each with a one-putt. But at the par 5 15th, his second shot missed the green and he had to settle for par.

The same happened at 16 when DeChambeau had to marshal all his chipping skills to get up and down for par following an errant approach. At virtually the same moment, Reed was birdieing 15 to close within one stroke.

DeChambeau’s approach at the 156-yard par 3 17th came up a full club short, leaving a solid 80-foot putt to the pin about 10 feet from the back edge. It was the kind of winding, up and down approach putt anybody would be happy to get within five feet, and DeChambeau didn’t, driving it almost off the putting surface entirely. His 10-foot comeback just nipped the right lip and stayed out for a bogey.

It could not have come at a less opportune time because Patrick Reed had just curled his own approach at 16 back within tap-in birdie range, moving him a stroke ahead of DeChambeau.

When Reed delivered his tee shot at 17 within 15 feet of the cup and promptly rolled that in for a birdie, the lead went to two strokes.

Since Reed is a mortal and thus liable to fall, the storyline required one final crisis, and Reed provided it. He hung out his drive way off to the right at 18, had to play it back into the fairway and fire an approach a solid 33 feet from the cup. Needing two putts to close the deal, Reed rolled his approach within three feet of the cup and tapped it home.

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If ever there was a victory for humans and sinners, Patrick Reed provided it this week at the WGC-Mexico Championship.

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