Round one of the playoffs went to Patrick Reed on Sunday.
The real winner was Bethpage Black.
The Black Beast pounded the contenders into near submission, Reed bogeyed two of his final three holes but held on for a one-shot victory thanks to a two-shot lead standing at the 72nd tee.
Reed managed to shoot 70 and that was good enough to overtake the mistake-prone Rickie Fowler, who simply fell apart over the final four holes with a pair of bogeys and a double at the 16th that dashed his hopes of playing his way on to the Ryder Cup team. Fowler held the 54-hole lead but his final 74 dropped him into a tie for seventh. All he needed was a top-three finish to be an automatic qualifier.
For Reed, it was his first win of the season, his career fifth and it moved him to the top of the FedEx Cup standings and solidified his spot on the Ryder Cup team. “That’s awesome,” Reed said after a two-putt bogey gave him the winning nine-under par score, a shot in front of Cinderella Sean O’Hair and rookie Emiliano Grillo. “I worked pretty hard the last couple of weeks. I’ve got more to work on. I fell into some of my old habits down the stretch.”
Fowler started the day two in front but Reed took over when Fowler bogeyed the 11th, then Reed’s lead grew to two after he birdied the 12th. After Fowler’s bogey at the 15th, Reed’s lead grew to three with three to play but Bethpage Black would not let him finish in double-digits under par.
A missed fairway at the 16th led to bogey and after a par at the 17th, he still had a two-shot lead going into 18 and he needed it. His tee shot hooked wildly into a fairway bunker and plugged. All he could do was blast out but from 136 yards out, he hit his third to 20 fee and two-putted for the win.
O’Hair was almost as big a winner as Reed. He started the day on the outside looking in. At 108th, he would not make it to Boston unless something good happened. It did. He shot 66 and moved all the way up to 15th in the FedEx Cup Standings, guaranteeing himself another two weeks at worst.
The second round of the playoffs head to the TPC Boston for the Deutsche Bank.
