Patrick Reed is absolutely no stranger to controversy, especially when it comes to the rules of golf. This weekend brought just the latest example, with Reed generating plenty of speculation after claiming to have identified an errant tee shot in a tree in Dubai.
This claim saved Reed from having to hit another ball off the tee, declaring it instead an unplayable and essentially reducing a stroke and distance penalty to a stroke penalty. As he’s in contention (chasing Rory McIlroy, who Reed chided as a child earlier this week in an early contender for 2023’s least self-aware moment in sports) everything counts.
The issue: video seems to show that the tree in which Reed claimed to find his ball was not, in fact, where the ball ended up. At the very least, it’s inconclusive. Golf Channel analyst Brandel Chamblee took the occasion to go full Kevin Costner in JFK/Jerry in the Keith Hernandez episode of Seinfeld, breaking things down frame-by-frame in an effort to determine just where Reed’s ball ended up.
It’s perfect television:
If you haven’t seen the video of Patrick Reed’s tee shot at 17, here it is. pic.twitter.com/sgnKcLH4Sf
— Brandel Chamblee (@chambleebrandel) January 30, 2023
The whole thing is even better when you factor in the fact that Reed (using legendary frivolous lawsuit filer Larry Klayman) has previously sued Chamblee, Golf Channel, and others in the world of media for defamation while seeking absurdly astronomical damages.
If anything, credit Chamblee here. He went out of his way to provide a few full minutes of old school video breakdown in service of a point that, in the end, probably won’t matter that much. Sure, Reed basically saved a stroke here, and he has a history with this exact sort of rules situation. Still, he’s almost certainly not winning this week, and then he’ll be back to LIV Golf soon enough.
But Brandel is the exact sort of media personality who won’t let something like this moment slide by without comment. And that’s good! This is Golf Channel, after all. They should be talking about this in this sort of granular detail! It’s the whole point of having a network devoted entirely to golf.
This was fun, especially hearing Chamblee employ his best lawyer cadence, as though he’s offering up evidence for the federal record. Excellent television, no notes.
