Patrick Reed has hit out at Rory McIlroy, branding the Northern Irishman's comments about LIV Golf rebels "insulting". Since the idea was first proposed, McIlroy has spoken strongly against LIV, and this week at the BMW PGA Championship has proved no different.
Joining the FedEx Cup champion in the field is a whole host of Saudi defectors, as 18 LIV players - including Reed - have made a controversial return to the DP World Tour to play at Wentworth. Speaking earlier in the week, McIlroy admitted that he felt LIV Golf members should not have been allowed to compete in Surrey.
He said: "They shouldn’t be here, but again that’s just my opinion. But we are all going to tee it up on the 1st tee [Thursday] and we are all going to go play 72 holes, which is a novelty for them at this point, and then we’ll go from there.”
McIlroy's thoughts were also echoed by Billy Horschel, who hit out at a number of defectors for showing up on the DP World Tour with only world ranking points in mind due to their absence on the Saudi-backed series. Reed however was less than impressed with both.
Speaking to The Times , the American said: "I feel like [Rory] making those types of comments is insulting. Let’s be honest, I’ve [played the DP World Tour] more consistently than some of the Europeans on the PGA Tour, so for them to take shots at other guys, especially Billy and Rory taking shots at the LIV guys saying they shouldn’t be here.
"I’ve done more for this Tour than Billy has and I’ve played almost as much as Rory has for the past five years." There were initial concerns that the returning LIV players would not be well received by the DP World Tour playing quota following their decision to make the Saudi switch.
Reed though squashed any rumours of disgruntlement, revealing that not one player has had any grievances with him upon his comeback. He went on: "I was able to talk to a bunch of DP World Tour players [on Tuesday] and not a single one of them had any issue with me being here because of the support I’ve shown this tour throughout my career, throughout Covid and at smaller events as well as big events.
These other guys sitting there and talking saying you can’t play two tours, that’s hypocritical as ever, these guys are playing the PGA Tour and the DP World Tour.” Reed has looked to put his controversies aside in the final round at Wentworth, by making a late charge to the top of the leaderboard by birdieing seven of his opening 14 holes to tie with the overnight lead set by Viktor Hovland and Soren Kjeldsen.
