The thing with PGA Tour player Patrick Reed, a short-game wizard operating on the shortest of golfing leashes, is that the doubts and denials far too routinely outflank the impressive polish of his game.
Think back to 2021, when he cruised to a five-stroke win in the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines. He stiff-armed challengers, fought through the greenside gremlins and comfortably walked to the bank with $1.35 million.
Well, not comfortably.
That's not what people talked about in the wake of his ninth and most recent Tour victory. That's not what people usually talk about with Reed, a Masters winner who is the sport's unofficial lightning rod.
"I definitely feel like everyone who has actually got to know me compared to what they read is completely different," Reed said Tuesday. "… I can't control really what's been written. I can only control what I do and how my interactions are with people, with fans, with people who get to know me."
A year ago, which seems twice that when measured against our twisted pandemic time warp, Reed found himself defending his actions on a eyebrow-raising embedded-ball situation in the third round.
Controversy mushroomed to such a degree that CBS led into Sunday's final round with a roundtable of sorts, ranging from Jim Nantz and Nick Faldo to Frank Nobilo. So many were asked to interpret and weigh intent that the whole of it felt reserved for a cable news debate about mask mandates.
Then came this week and this SI.com headline: "Patrick Reed, Back to Defend His Farmers Insurance Title, Is Still Golf's Best 'Bad Guy' "
Not your normal "defending champion" stuff, for sure.
"The only thing I can do is keep on moving forward, keep trying to get the best I can on the golf course and handle myself how I feel like I'm supposed to off the golf course," Reed said.
"As long as I feel like I'm doing the right things, all of it will take care of itself."
The quizzical looks and sideways glances have, in some cases, been earned — and always well documented. There were accusations of theft and cheating in college. At the 2019 Hero World Challenge, Reed was hit with a two-stroke penalty for twice improving lies in the sand.
And at Torrey Pines in 2021, Reed received embedded-ball relief despite a bounce caught on TV that made the result all but impossible.
Still, the 31-year-old is No. 26 in the world with Top 10s in each major and a green jacket that is forever his. With Reed, though, there's always the hesitation … always the parsed words … always the "but."
"He did win by five, right? So, he played better than everybody else by quite a bit," said world No. 1 Jon Rahm, considering Reed's tightrope. "(You're) talking about an instance where only he knows what happened (on the embedded ball). I'm in no room to judge. The footage is, it's not the best in that sense.
"As far as I'm concerned, he is the 2021 Farmers Insurance Open champion and he did it by five. It was great playing the whole week."
Rahm acknowledged the noise around Reed can overshadow his game. He recalled The Players Championship last March in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., when his gaze locked on a video board.
"(The video board) said, inside 10 feet, Patrick Reed, he's top 10 strokes gained putting. Next one's 10 to 15 feet, he's top 10. Next one's 15 to 20 feet, he's top 10, next one's 20 to 25, he's top 10," Rahm said. "I kept looking at it like, this is a freaking joke.
"… That short game, he has wonderful hands. I know he spends a lot of time on it. But I can see how it gets lost in translation or in the discussion with other things that have happened."
Justin Thomas, No. 6 in the world, attempted to sift through the discussion, as well.
"I think his success and amount of wins and everything he's done speaks for itself," he said. "... You can't take away the fact that he's a Masters champion and the fact that he's won however many times he's won. I don't know if there's anybody I'd want on Tour other than him with the wedge and putter in their hand. He gets up and down from everywhere."
The pause.
"I understand what you're saying," Thomas said, "but I really just think it kind of depends on who you ask more than anything."
All of the accompanying turbulence detracts from Reed's game, though, without a doubt.
Look back no further than that ball, that controversy and that round in the 2021 Farmers. An identical situation involving a potentially embedded ball happened to Rory McIlroy, who also picked it up.
The Tour released a statement saying both players handled things properly, given the conditions. The massive difference, however: McIlroy's reputation was and remains sterling.
In a game like golf, built brick by brick around integrity and fair play, everything that happens on the course matters — including before and after swinging a club.
When asked Tuesday about falling gravely ill last year with what Reed previously termed bilateral pneumonia, he flashed a human side golf too rarely sees.
"When the doctor told me that, 'Hey, there's a good chance you might not survive this and you might not see your family again,' when you hear that, you go from feeling really bad to a really dark place mentally," he said.
Golf voice Nantz, asked by the Union-Tribune to balance Reed's performance versus perception last spring, underscored the challenge in attempting to sort it all.
"I'm not one who likes to draw conclusions off of gray areas," Nantz said then. "I respect his talent. He's got a lot of game and a lot more we're going to see out of that game. His legacy is still in progress. It could be a good and glorious legacy, when it's all said and done. Let's see where it goes.
"He's got a short game and creative flair that, even though it's not as fancy as Phil (Mickelson) with pitching and flop shots, he has skill like Phil. He can pull off amazing up and downs.
"These are long careers, especially when you have a talent level like his. This isn't a running back that flames out after four or five years. These are 25-, 30-year careers. I'm not drawing conclusions on him.
"Even going back to San Diego. I'm not sure anybody knows what happened there. I'm certainly not going to pass any guilt."
You're never quite sure what to think when it comes to Reed.
And for a player that talented, that's the problem.
