KAPALUA, Maui >> Patrick Reed walked out of the scorer’s van looking like his wife had just up and left him for another man.
Despondent might be too strong a word to describe last year’s winner of the Hyundai Tournament of Champions, but he was certainly disappointed he hadn’t tracked down eventual winner Jordan Spieth.
Reed got to within a couple of shots on the front nine by going 4 under, but Spieth responded to the challenge to eventually beat Reed by eight shots. And he finished second. It was clear to everyone when Spieth is on, he is the best golfer in the world.
“Today on the back nine I didn’t really get anything going,” Reed said. “But as a whole I hit the ball great — even when I wasn’t hitting the ball solid I knew where it was going. It was one of those weeks that I got the ball in front of me, got it on the green and rolled a couple of putts in here and there.”
Reed was on his way to becoming the first golfer to go bogey-free for an entire tournament since Charles Howell III turned that trick in 2010 en route to a tie for ninth at the Greenbrier Classic.
But a bogey at the par-5 15th — one of the easiest holes on the course — stepped up and bit him on the rear end when he least expected it. He rallied for a birdie at 16, but the damage was done.
“The good thing is I didn’t beat myself up,” Reed said. “I didn’t get myself into bad positions where there’s no way I could get up-and-down for a par. Unfortunately, the only bogey I had was on that par 5, which honestly, it was probably the easiest up-and-down I had all week. It was a putt from the fringe. Unfortunately I didn’t hit it hard enough.
“But at the end of the day if you would have told me coming into this week with the wind blowing hard the third and fourth rounds that I was only going to have one bogey for the week, I would have taken it.”
Day finds his range
World No. 2 Jason Day didn’t make a lot of noise this week, until Sunday’s final round, in which he shot an 8-under 65 to finish in a tie for 10th. He had originally committed to play in this week’s Sony Open in Hawaii, but changed his mind, much to the chagrin of Sony officials.
Day said he wouldn’t return to the PGA Tour until Torrey Pines in San Diego.
“Yeah, just trying to get back into the swing of things with being sharp,” Day said. “And I’m talking about just not missing greens with wedges and not three-putting from 20, 30 feet, just little things like that. Having soft bogeys, that’s kind of the stuff that holds you back. So I made a lot of silly errors out there and I gave away a lot of easy birdies out there this week. So try to tidy that up for the upcoming tournaments.
“My next stop is Torrey, which is a very difficult golf course. Obviously the South Course is tough, but the North Course you can kind of take advantage of. So I got to get back to the drawing board, kind of get back on to what needs to happen for me to win that tournament.”
Inside the numbers
The scoring average at this week’s event went down steadily at the end of each round. The first 18 holes the average was 70.594 and Sunday’s closing 18 was 69.375 for the 32 golfers in the field. The four-day average was a blistering 69.805 in ideal conditions at the Plantation Course.
There were 171 birdies against 46 bogeys, eight doubles and one triple in the final round. The easiest hole was the par-5 fifth with a scoring average of 4.125 with three eagles, 23 birdies, five pars and one bogey. The most difficult hole was the par-4 17th with a scoring average of 4.219. There were three birdies, 21 pars, six bogeys and two double bogeys.
