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Brandel Chamblee has taken Patrick Reed to task over the PGA Tour star’s latest rules debacle and says “not a single player is in defence of what Reed did”.
Reed swept up his ninth PGA Tour victory at the Farmers Insurance Open at the weekend but did so under a cloud of suspicion, following an incident that occurred on Torrey Pines’ tenth hole during Saturday’s third round.
Reed claimed embedded ball relief after pulling his approach shot from a fairway bunker into the left rough. That was despite the fact television footage showed that the ball had, quite clearly, bounced.
The 30-year-old was adamant neither he nor anyone in his group saw the ball bounce. He then marked his ball and picked it up before a rules official could inspect the lie.
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Reed was cleared to take a free drop and has been absolved of wrongdoing by PGA Tour officials.
The incident has sparked fury from across the golf world as former and current pros have called Reed’s actions into question, including former tour pro and analyst Brandel Chamblee.
“In the same way that there is a distinction between law and morality, there is a mark distinction, in this case, between what he was legally allowed to do and what he ethically appeared to be doing,” said Chamblee, speaking on the Golf Channel.
“There is an unwritten code which players adhere to around the golf ball. He violated that code in so many ways that even the rules officials themselves were stammering as to how to address it.”
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Chamblee was heavily critical of Reed in 2019 when allegations were made that the former Masters champion had cheated at the Hero World Challenge. Just over a year on, his strong feelings towards his fellow American haven’t subsided.
“I either messaged or talked to 15 to 20 current and past tour players, some of them Hall of Fame members, over the past 24 hours and not a single player is in defence of what Patrick Reed did,” added Chamblee.
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“Every single tour player that watched the ball bounce knows there is not a doubt in their mind that the ball did not embed. He pulled it out, palmed it, poked around the hole for a period of time. I’ve never seen anybody do that.
“Ask yourself this: if everybody in the field were to conduct themselves around a golf ball in this manner, would it be good for the game of golf? It would not be. It would call into question every single movement or drop that every single player would be making. It would cause an uproar on the PGA Tour.”
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