Patrick Reed shows once more why he will always be known as a cheater

“Play it as it lies.” It’s the latest term that can be applied to yet another controversy surrounding Patrick Reed.

Golf is full of existential metaphors. It is every bit as much an intellectual pursuit as it is a physical one. Every round is a journey. There are good times and bad. You must forget the past and find hope in the future.

And perhaps most importantly, you are in control of your destiny. You are the only one who hits your ball. Sometimes it ends up feet from the cup. Other times it gets plugged in the lip of a bunker. Either way, you put it there and only you are responsible for the result.

Do outside forces sometimes intervene on your journey? Sure. The wind can push a good strike into the rough. A tree can miraculously kick a bad shot back into the fairway. A glancing nick from the smallest overhanging twig can send a pin seeking laser beam deep into the woods.

You can blame who or whatever you like but, as in life, you must play on.

In golf, there are rules that accommodate any number of unfair situations that allow a player to extricate themselves from outside interference. If a ball comes to rest on a sprinkler the player gets relief. These rulings are rare and tend to even out over the long haul.

More importantly, these rules apply to all players. The reason we do this is to “Protect the Field.”

I love that phrase – Protect the Field. You rarely hear it used outside of golf, though rules in every sport are designed to do essentially the same thing. We have rules so one competitor doesn’t gain an unfair advantage over the other players. It’s really that simple.

But golf approaches rules differently.

In every other sport around the world, athletes and coaches seek to push or circumvent the rules to gain an advantage. Athletes take questionable supplements or drugs, they deflate footballs, cork bats, etc.

The generally accepted principle in sports is, “You aren’t trying if you aren’t cheating.” Put another way, “It’s not cheating if you don’t get caught.”

Another difference between virtually every other professional sport and golf is the ubiquity of referees, umpires, officials, and judges. Even in auto racing, officials will look at slo-mo replays to determine if a driver committed an infraction. After the race, they dissect cars for illegal builds.

In every major sport, there are rules officials lording over every second of competition with the ability to stop play, assess penalties, and sometimes even disqualify participants.

But this is where golf diverges and it’s one of the reasons I find the game the most compelling and satisfying sport I’ve ever played.

While every other sport in the world uses rules as rigid guardrails to keep the players within the bounds of fair competition, golf proceeds without these heavily defined lines.

In golf, your conscience is the guardrail.

There is no official looking at every lie, every swing, and every piece of equipment. In golf, the player is both participant and referee.

Of course, rules officials can be brought in when there is confusion or disagreement, but they are there to clarify, not rule. Ultimately, the player is responsible for “Protecting the Field” against their own actions.

Can you imagine NBA or NFL players being responsible for calling fouls and penalties on each other? Or MLB players calling their own strikes and balls? Pure chaos.

But in golf…

Let me ask you all something. How many times have you been playing with friends – maybe there isn’t even money on the line – and you finish a hole and tell your buddy your score for the card?

“I got a double there,” you say with resignation.

“What? I thought that was bogey?” they reply.

“No, I had to take an unplayable in the rough, I was right up against a tree.”

No one saw your lie. No one saw your drop. Your friends probably wouldn’t even care if you just moved it a couple of feet and hit it from virtually the same lie conditions and location.

But you would care, wouldn’t you? You’d know and it would eat at you – especially if it affected a match or bet. At least it would if you aren’t a sociopath.

And so we arrive at Patrick Reed.

Will any of us ever know if Reed’s ball was plugged on a 2-foot bounce? No. The official said he felt a divot, but Patrick Reed also had his hand on the ball for several seconds at which time he could have easily and unnoticeably applied a little weight and pressed it into the damp ground.

You may find this theory mean-spirited, but let me ask you this.

Patrick Reed proceeded to mark the ball, take a one-club relief, and drop the ball. Did that ball – dropped from two feet – gently fall and stay where it landed? No.

The ground was firm enough that both his drops, a mere three feet away from his “embedded ball”, bounced and rolled away. This allowed him to place the ball and give himself a perfect lie.

At the very least, it defies physics and logic. Did I mention this all occurred on the side of a slope where water would naturally run off and not create the soft conditions Rory faced in a low-lying area of the course?

While many of us have poured over the video of Patrick Reed like the FBI inspecting the Zapruder film, any conclusions that can be drawn are more confusing and disturbing with each frame.

None of us is surprised Patrick Reed would cheat. That’s his reputation and there is ample video and anecdotal evidence to back it up. To own this reputation and continue to act in the manner he did on Saturday at Torrey Pines calls for an intervention.

Despite the entire golfing world agreeing that something untoward occurred, the PGA Tour blithely glossed over the event and blessed Reed’s actions.

For me, that’s the most disturbing aspect of the entire episode.

Golf is designed to be more punitive than fair. It’s not fair when your ball rolls into a divot in the fairway. It’s not fair when a ball collects mud or comes to rest on a tree root.

But you play it.

The PGA Tour’s response damaged the sanctity of the game. I know that sounds pompous and archaic to some. It shouldn’t. The rules of golf were first written on parchment paper with a plume. That too sounds silly, but it isn’t. It’s beautiful, awe-inspiring, and sacred to those of us who love the game.

Golf holds a special place in the sporting universe given how it commands players to police themselves. The fragility and personal onus it puts on players is a burden. It’s intended to be. The reason is that it demands a player must occasionally sacrifice their own well-being to “Protect the Field” and the spirit of the game.

I don’t know what was going through Patrick Reed’s head when he leaned over the ball, put his hand on it for much more time than it takes to lift it, moved it, then dug around in the “divot” with his fingers for a few more seconds.

But I know this. He wasn’t thinking about protecting the field. He wasn’t thinking about the spirit of the rules of golf. It seems clear he was thinking about how he could circumvent them in a manner that didn’t cost him a stroke.

In other words, Patrick Reed was doing exactly what Patrick Reed has done every day of his collegiate and professional careers. He was only thinking of himself. The tournament and the field were damaged in the process. Sadly, the PGA Tour officials decided to play accomplice.

Both Patrick Reed and the Tour are about to find out the cover-up is always worse than the crime. This event will cast a long shadow and it’s not going away any time soon.