Nine over through nine holes
A left hand opening and closing near the 10th tee. That is the picture everyone took away from Patrick Reed’s Friday at Wentworth.
Then he walked in. A mid-round withdrawal from the second round of the BMW PGA Championship in Surrey, with the Race to Dubai leader heading back to the clubhouse nine over for the day. One triple. Two doubles. The rest read about the same.
DP World Tour commentators pointed at a tree root. Reed had been hacking out from the trees on the par-4 9th, caught something solid coming through, and the left hand wore it. Nothing has been confirmed.
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Thursday he was two off the lead
The contrast stings. Reed signed for a 68 on Thursday, four under, five birdies against a single bogey. That left him two behind Aaron Rai and Joakim Lagergren at the top.
The week before, he finished joint second at the Irish Open. So the 36-year-old American, the 2018 Masters champion, rolled into Wentworth in the best stretch of golf he has played in Europe all year.
On a right-handed swing the left hand sits at the top of the grip. It takes the shock first. That is not an injury you grind through on willpower.
An 840-point cushion that suddenly matters
Reed sits on 3,423.62 points in the Race to Dubai. Rory McIlroy is next at 2,583.86, with Eugenio Chacarra third on 2,499.42.
More than 800 points clear of McIlroy is real breathing room. It is not a finished race, though, not if this layoff stretches past the weekend.
He built the buffer on two wins: the Dubai Desert Classic in January and the Qatar Masters in February. Both in the Middle East, which is exactly where the tour heads back to close out the season.
Nobody has said how long he will be out.
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