Did Patrick Reed Ignite His Entire Season This Week In Mexico?

Patrick Reed is one of the most polarizing players on Tour, but love him or hate him one thing that has remained true about him is he is a fantastic golfer. Reed is a Masters champion, a two-time World Golf Championship winner, and someone who has consistently found himself in contention at the biggest events.

Patrick Reed is a nine-time career winner and he holds one of the most unique streaks on Tour after having made the Tour Championship in eight consecutive seasons.

“I’m really proud of it because that means you have to play consistently well every single year. You can’t have a down year, you have to consistently play solid and throughout each season be inside the Top-30 on the PGA Tour, which we have the best players in the world playing on the PGA Tour and to be able to do that, that means your game’s obviously in the right direction and where it’s supposed to be in order to compete at the highest level because if you playing it in the Top-30 year in and year out, that means you’re also playing well in the big events,” was his response prior to this week’s Mexico Open at Vidanta when asked how the accomplishment compared to other achievements.

All of that is in the past, however, and the current reality facing Patrick Reed is that he really hasn’t been at his best since last summer. Last August he struggled with what he described as a nearly fatal battle with pneumonia when he was hospitalized prior to the Tour Championship at East Lake in Atlanta, Georgia. Thankfully he recovered before eventually finishing in a share of 17th place at the PGA’s season finale.

The difficult conclusion to the season for Reed resulted in his omission from the Ryder Cup team last September. It was the first time since he has been a PGA professional that he was not a part of Team USA, after having made the team in 2014, 2016, and 2018. Since last year’s Tour Championship things have by and large been a struggle for Patrick Reed.

Patrick Reed has struggled to get back to his very best since last summer.

2022 has been a real struggle for Patrick Reed thus far, he has failed to record a single top 10 finish this year and even had a stretch between the Genesis and Arnold Palmer Invitationals where he missed three consecutive cuts. Reed’s best finish this year came back at the Sentry Tournament of Champions at the beginning of the year when he finished T-15.

If you were to look at the entirety of the 2021-22 PGA season as a whole up to this point, he would have recorded just two top 10 finishes with one of those coming in a no-cut, limited-field event at the Hero World Challenge. 

This week Patrick Reed is playing at the inaugural 2022 Mexico Open at Vidanta and he is finally showing signs that he could be turning the page on what has been a difficult season so far. An opening 67, 66 through the first two days has the 2017 Masters winner sitting in a share of 3rd going into the weekend, just three shots behind the halfway leader Jon Rahm.

Some of Reed’s best performances have come in Mexico and as a former winner of the WGC-Mexico at Chapultepec in 2020 he has spoken about his love of events in the country.

“There’s nothing better. You come down here and every time I’ve been in Mexico, whether it’s in Mayakoba, whether it’s here, whether it was in Mexico City, the people are so friendly, they treat you like their own and you really feel like you’re at home,” he commented earlier this week.

Patrick Reed had three consecutive top 20 finishes at the WGC-Mexico and he will be hoping that he can once again challenge in Mexico this weekend. The nine-year PGA Tour professional currently sits at 60th in the FedEx Cup standings and will need to kick into gear soon if he hopes to extend his remarkable Tour Championship appearance streak later this year.  Perhaps, just maybe, Patrick Reed is turning the page once again this week in Mexico and will be back to his very best really soon.