Pantomime villain Reed is at it again at Presidents Cup- National Club Golfer

Patrick Reed has lost four of his last five team matches and there was also the small matter 0f when he produced the dodgiest storyline of the year in a year of some quite horrific behaviour.

But if you were expecting the one-time face of American team golf to get his head down and shush all the external noises then you’d be wrong. In the run-up to the matches there was a terribly staged signing of an autograph but otherwise it was business as normal – i.e. ‘I’m Patrick Reed and I couldn’t care less’.

On the 1st tee on Friday we didn’t have to wait long as one wag chirped up: “You’re really going to make your caddie carry 14 clubs and a shovel?”

Bang on cue, Reed drove it into a greenside bunker. There was also, reportedly, a mini coming together of shoulders with Cam Smith, who held little back in his criticism of Reed’s actions in the Bahamas, and who was on the sidelines on Thursday.

Reed and Webb Simpson lost at the last to CT Pan and Hideki Matsuyama.

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Of the crowds, Reed said: “It’s exactly what I expected,” with Simpson chiming in with the words only a playing partner can come out: “Undeserved. Undeserved”.

Patrick Reed has a new message for the crowd at Royal Melbourne 👀pic.twitter.com/bSKfw7oRwx

— Golf Digest (@GolfDigest) December 13, 2019

On day two Reed tried to give a bit back in his own inimitable way when, after some someone shouted ‘Miss!’ at the 11th, the American did the opposite and then put on this little stage show.

Again, it’s a lovely action and quite amusing in some ways but why bother alienating yourself further? Then again, we’ve been saying the same thing for years.

In some form of poetic justice Marc Leishman also birdied the same hole and he and Abraham Ancer closed out the match at the 16th.

Reed and Simpson, 0-0-2, go again in Friday’s fourballs.