In another example of golf intersecting with courtroom news, Patrick Reed has filed a defamation suit against Golf Channel commentator Brandel Chamblee seeking at least $750 million in damages. In related news, Patrick Reed will lose.
This conflict has been brewing for a while. Patrick Reed has been penalized for cheating on multiple occasions, maybe most memorably when he was caught on camera shoveling sand around to improve his lie in the Bahamas a few years ago.
Video of that incident, for the joint sake of comedy and fact:
I'm dying at the idea that any Tour pro wouldn't notice catching sand not once but twice on a backswing, and then dying all over again when it's so obviously an effort to improve his lie, and dying a third time at his professed indignation. pic.twitter.com/SxblEXPYim
— Jay Rigdon (@jayrigdon5) December 6, 2019
Reed’s legal team had already attempted to file a cease-and-desist against Chamblee in 2020 in the wake of that incident, and the new suit alleges that fans are taking cues from Chamblee when heckling Reed with (reality-based) heckling by calling him a cheater on the course. It’s one of the funniest damn lawsuits you’ll ever read, too, pulling in LIV whataboutism and mentioning plenty of other top players as well.
Reed says that fans taking cues from Chamblee often heckle him during tournaments, yelling at him, "'You cheater!' 'Cheat!' 'Everyone hates you cheater!' 'You’re going to miss this you cheater!'"https://t.co/wc4cIZCCWI
— Cameron Langford (@cam_langford) August 16, 2022
Those taunts have occasionally made telecasts:
Here's Dan Hicks calling a fan yelling "Cheater!" at Patrick Reed (a cheater) unfortunate pic.twitter.com/bNWu9Ir2Ta
— Jay Rigdon (@jayrigdon5) January 6, 2020
Reed’s issues with the rules of golf and shady misdeeds in general aren’t new. Shane Ryan’s Slaying the Tiger went into deep detail on Reed’s checkered issues in college, with accusations of cheating from his own teammates plaguing him throughout his amateur career and into his pro days. (No one puts rules analysts to the test like Reed.)
If you’re perusing the complaint and wondering just how in the world a reputable attorney would file this in court, don’t worry. No reputable attorney has. Reed is being represented in this matter by problematic person and legendary frivolous lawsuit-filer Larry Klayman.
The attorney who filed the suit is Larry Klayman. https://t.co/BFSia103cO pic.twitter.com/mZYjINDS0p
— Brendan Porath (@BrendanPorath) August 17, 2022
In all, it’s just an absolutely incredible window into just how far gone Patrick Reed truly is at this point. It’s been apparent for a long time now that he’s surrounded with people who are either actively and maliciously exploiting him for their own gain or enabling his own impossibly dickish impulses. In Klayman, #TeamReed has finally found a perfect legal match, someone willing to take their money and try and push an impossibly stupid case in court.
It will go nowhere, the money will be burned, and there’s a chance some PGA Tour discipline records get exposed as part of the discovery process (which can only add to the potential hilarity here.)
$750 million.
Absurd.
