MASTERS TOURNAMENT

April 10, 2022

Patrick Reed

Quick Quotes

Q. How would you assess the week overall?

PATRICK REED: Frustrating, to say the least. It felt like the first day was a bunch of kind of mental mistakes. The next two days was just a couple of bogeys that really I felt like shouldn't really have happened. I feel like I hit a lot of quality golf shots. I feel like I hit a lot of good putts. Just the ball wasn't going in.

Then today -- yeah, today. Start off thinking I'm making the right decision on 1 on the second shot. Landed just over the false edge, just over the green, make bogey by missing a short one. Three-putt 2. And then 3 hit drive to left, have 90 yards. One hopping into the flagstick, and comes all the way off the green. Instead of having realistically probably six feet or less for birdie, I'm 30 yards from the flag trying to chip up to that green and make bogey.

Kind of summed up the week, especially the day. Today just seemed like I was on the wrong side of bounces. Just was landing the ball instead of landing it just on top of ridges, but it ended up just barely in ridges. Just was a frustrating week.

Q. If I can just transition, Scottie is playing really well. Whatever happens out there. I was talking with Ben Crenshaw yesterday, and he was saying as the emcee of the Champions Dinner, it's always emotional, but for you and Jordan it was more so because you are Texans, and you know what that means. How do you explain the relationship that Texans seem to have with this event?

PATRICK REED: I think the biggest thing is just -- I mean, look at this week just in general. You've seen basically four different types of conditions. You've had windy. You've had rainy. You've had wet, soft, firm, hot, cold. It's kind of like at home. It's what we get at home. You just never know what you're going to get. It could be 75, could be blowing 40, or it could raining, or it could be firm and fast.

I think because of that, it allows us when we get into situations, especially around here where wind swirls and stuff, it's not just about knowing your distances, but you also have to know what window it needs to be out at that distance. You just have to control your ball. I feel like around here that's what you need.

Back home whether you live in Houston, Dallas, or San Antonio or Austin, that's kind of what you get. You get all of these different kind of conditions, and you learn how to play in it.

Q. Is it fair you seem to be comfortable on this golf course right from the start?

PATRICK REED: It's hard to say you're ever comfortable in this place, but I would say we have a little bit more familiarity to it. You kind of -- you're not sitting there worried about wind swirls. You kind of know how to play those, and this is just one of those golf courses that it rewards players that are on.

If you are playing really well, you have control of your golf ball, and you have a clear head space, you can actually play offense on this place rather than feeling like you're playing defense the whole time.

Q. Kind of a strange question. I knew there was a time as soon as you finished up your rounds you would slide on cowboy boots. I'm not sure --

PATRICK REED: They're in the locker.

Q. When you won here, did you go to the dinner in cowboy boots?

PATRICK REED: Yeah. I didn't go in golf shoes.

Q. Just asking.

PATRICK REED: Always.

Q. It's a good look is why I'm asking. Does it fit the jacket?

PATRICK REED: Sure, it looked amazing with the jacket. The thing is I got married in the cowboy boots I always wear. They've been resoled 1,000 times. They're the most comfortable shoes I own. There's not a pair of tennis shoes out there that are more comfortable than my boots.

If anyone wants to challenge that, they can try to send me a pair of tennis shoes that they think is more comfortable, but it's not going to beat those boots.

Q. You've gotten on these runs like Scottie is on right now where you have a couple of months, and he is going nuts. Not that you can get into his head, but what's it like when you are in those moments where he kind of is now, where he is playing out of his mind and playing so well and winning big tournaments and now possibly on the precipice of his first major?

PATRICK REED: All the trouble, you don't ever see it. You see basically flagstick or wherever you are trying to land, and honestly, the hole looks the size of an ocean. You feel like you can't miss.

Around this place when you have that kind of confidence, you kind of have that kind of feel that you have, then you're not really sitting there worried about where to miss it. You're more sitting there being like, all right, I'm attacking it this way rather than looking at the opposite.

And you can definitely tell kind of the way he is playing, especially the way he has handled himself on some of the adversity yesterday that he had, he never looked worried. He never -- yeah, he hit a poor shot here, poor shot there, but then he rebounded really quickly. He looked as if he was in full control even in some bad situations where he just was, like, all right, this is what we're trying to do.

That's what happens when you get that confidence and you are kind of in that mode. Nothing really fazes you, whether you hit a ball that ends up staying in a tree like it did on 18 or anything like that.

If you kind of get in the wrong kind of head space where you don't know what's going on, you wouldn't be able to hit an iron shot the way he did on that last hole yesterday. That 240 up the hill with that driving iron he hit to land that left of the flag even though it was going to go over the green, but landing it left of the flag to leave yourself a lot easier up-and-down, you're not executing those golf shots if you're in a bad head space.

Q. The four rounds, your final thoughts on No. 11, the changes?

PATRICK REED: Let's see. I had three -- one, two, three. I had three good looks for birdie, and I had a ball that was just short of the green to that front flag, which is a basic kind of putt. Well, not basic putt, basic nine-degree turner, but easy two-putt. I don't mind it.

Q. Fair enough.

PATRICK REED: It's one of those things that I think going forward, like hole 11, and same thing on like hole 4, as we've added length to those holes, you now need a middle tee box in there because you either have 520 on 11 or you have the member tees, which I think is 440, 450. Is it -- 440 or 450.

There's a lot of room in there that if you added an extra tee -- because, I mean, yesterday we were lucky enough yesterday that the wind was a little bit more off the right. If it was the same wind direction as the first two days, which was straight in, maybe barely off the right, but a lot in, and with how cold it was, 520 would have been impossible.

I already was hammering 4-iron on that hole, and I can only imagine you turn that into the wind, and if you are cold, you are stuck in no man's land because there is nowhere to put it besides on the back tee box.

Same thing on 4. Yesterday that was the first time on a par-3, except for Oakmont -- was it No. 8? That par-3, which I think is just stupid, that one is. 4 is the first time I've ever actually hit a wood into that green. I hit 3-wood yesterday pin high. It's one of those things. If you have a couple of extra tee boxes there, it gives you options depending on weather.