MASTERS FRIDAY NOTEBOOK: REED BOUNCES BACK FROM TOUGH MORNING
AUGUSTA, Ga. – Patrick Reed was 2 under through 14 holes Thursday when darkness suspended play. By the time he rounded up the family, drove home, had dinner and showered before climbing into bed, it was 11 p.m.
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Then a 4:30 a.m. wake-up call Friday morning to prepare for the resumption of his first round.
Then the real wake-up call.
• Bogey at 16 after a poor tee shot.
• Bogey at 17 despite two shots executed exactly how he wanted.
“One night, 17 on this golf course is going to disappear, and I'm going to be the one that does it,” Reed joked. “I hit a perfect drive this morning, hit the iron shot exactly how I wanted to, and I was closer to 18 tee box than I was 17 green. Those things are what drive me nuts is hitting quality golf shots and walking off with bogey.”
• Double-bogey at 18 when his tee ball ended up in the base of the tree on the corner of a dog-leg, settling into a golf ball-sized spot that forced him to take an unplayable.
“I had to drop so far back, I had to hit 3-wood,” Reed said, “then had to hit left of the green and easy double there.”
On pace to shoot 70 after Thursday, Reed wound up with a 2-over 74, followed by a turnaround time of less than 40 minutes to start his second round.
“Definitely a shock to the system,” Reed said. “It was a gut punch for sure.”
The good news is that Reed didn’t carry over his frustrations into the afternoon. He hit a solid driver and 5-iron on his opening two shots to settle back into a rhythm, ultimately shooting a 2-under 70 that tied for the second lowest score in the second round.
“You'd like to get out there after kind of a finish like that and try to hit a couple quality golf shots and forget about it, so I think that helped,” Reed said. “But also at the same time, I feel like I've been doing a lot of things really well and hitting the ball solid, so it's like, all right, let's leave those three holes as a fluke and let's get it back.
“I was able to do that. Really just didn't get back as far under par as I wanted to overall and on the day, but I was able to climb back into a position that I feel like I can deal with and live with.”
Reed was inside the top 20 on the leaderboard when he finished his round. A year ago, he was in a similar position, tied for 16th through two rounds, and eventually shot 72-68 on the weekend to finish tied for fourth.
Although he has six shots to make up behind co-leaders Bryson DeChambeau (Crushers GC), Max Homa and Scottie Scheffler, Reed's hoping to make a big move up the leaderboard Saturday as he chases his second green jacket.
“Obviously you'd feel a lot more confident if you were a couple under par, but I think now I'm just kind of at the mercy of seeing where those guys are,” Reed said. “But at the same time, we are at Augusta National. Anything can happen. I've been here before where you feel like you're out of it, and then the next thing you know you get hot, make some birdies. Those guys make a couple mistakes.
“I feel like we're hitting the ball well enough and I'm playing well enough that I can make a run, and I think that's all that really matters. As long as I believe I can make the run and have a chance, then who knows what's going on this weekend.”
HATTON MAKES WEEKEND
Legion XIII’s Tyrrell Hatton joked last week that just making the cut at the Masters would feel like winning a green jacket, given his lack of results in previous starts at Augusta National.
Hatton did indeed make the cut at 3 over after shooting a second-round 2-over 74. But he could’ve been much higher on the leaderboard following an encouraging start Thursday in which he was 3 under through 14 holes.
Much like Reed, Hatton suffered a shock to the system on his first hole Friday morning when play resumed, making double bogey at the par-5 15th.
“Really frustrating to come out first thing this morning,” Hatton said. “I said before I hit my second shot into 15, I don't want to leave myself 80 yards because I generally get quite a lot of spin with my wedges, and around the 80 yards, it was like awkward because it's such a hard shot to that pin.
“I ended up just trying to [hit] it low, and I was trying to just pitch it on the green, and you don't quite hit it hard enough, and all of a sudden you make double and you're straight away on the back foot. So that was a horrible way to start this morning.
“Unfortunately, I didn't really -- I don't feel like I had too many good breaks, as I said. The score is as bad as it could be, I think.”
But about that personal green jacket?
“Obviously I want to do better than just making the weekend,” said Hatton, who is paired with Tiger Woods in Saturday's third round. “Conditions are very challenging out there. It's so hard with the gusts that you get.
“I feel like I've been a little bit unlucky these first two days. Certainly feel like I've played better golf than what my score currently suggests or shows. But at least we're here for the weekend. I've got two more rounds to see if I can add to my tally of finally shooting in the 60s again.”
Through his first 26 rounds at Augusta National, Hatton has shot in the 60s once, a 4-under 68 in the final round in 2021.
LATE PUSH FOR NIEMANN, RAHM
Joaquin Niemann and Jon Rahm, the top two players in the 2024 LIV Golf season-long points standings, pushed hard down the stretch to successful reach the weekend.
Niemann, the Torque GC captain who leads the individual standings thanks to victories at LIV Golf Mayakoba and LIV Golf Jeddah, shot a 6-over 78 that left him at 4 over after his opening 70.
Playing on a special invite from the Masters, Niemann suffered four bogeys and a double on his back nine but finished with a birdie on the 18th when he knocked his approach shot to 8 feet.
“I wanted to make that birdie, of course,” Niemann said. “Obviously you don't want to miss the cut. But the way I was playing, I was a little pissed, and I was almost trying to miss it.”
Legion XIII captain Rahm, the defending Masters champion. shot a 4-over 76 to finish at 5 over, one shot under the cutline.
Rahm’s double bogey on the par-4 14th left him at 5 over and in danger of missing the then-projected cut line. But he bounced back with his only two birdies of the day although a bogey at 17 made things tight going into the final hole.
“It's a very bad day not to be comfortable with the swing, that's for sure,” Rahm said. “Yeah, just fighting it all day, never comfortable. I didn't give myself a lot of chances, and it was a last ditch effort at the end to try and make the cut. Luckily, I was successful in doing so.”
DeChambeau leads the contingent of LIV golfers with a share of the lead at 6 under. Ripper GC Captain Cameron Smith is also in good shape entering the weekend, tied for eighth at 1 under after his even-par 72.
Also making the cut are Reed (Even), Hatton (2 over), Smash GC Captain Brooks Koepka (2 over) and HyFlyers GC captain Phil Mickelson (4 over).
"I think we'll be able to enjoy it a little bit more this weekend when it's nicer and not such a struggle," Mickelson said. "Today was really just fighting hard for pars, as many as you can make, and this weekend should be fun."
The made cut for Mickelson is the 28th in his Masters career in 31 starts.
ROUND 3 TEE TIMES
Here are the tee times and pairings for the LIV Golf players in Saturday's third round (all times ET)
10:25 a.m. - JON RAHM (Legion XIII), Grayson Murray
11:05 a.m. – JOAQUIN NIEMANN (Torque GC), Min Woo Lee
11:25 a.m. – PHIL MICKELSON (HyFlyers GC), Sahith Theegala
12:35 p.m. – BROOKS KOEPKA (Smash GC), Taylor Moore
12:45 p.m. - TYRRELL HATTON (Legion XIII), Tiger Woods
1:35 p.m. – PATRICK REED (4Aces GC), Adam Schenk
1:45 p.m. – CAMERON SMITH (Ripper GC), Byeong Hun An
2:45 p.m. – BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU (Crushers GC), Max Homa
(Reed photo courtesy of David Paul Morris/Masters)