Patrick Reed’s rules infraction at the Hero World Challenge in December continues to resonate as the calendar turns to March, a controversy flamed by fiery remarks from four-time major winner Brooks Koepka and former CBS Sports analyst Peter Kostis as well as Reed’s high-profile performance at the WGC-Mexico Championship. But if Reed believed his win at Chapultepec would quiet the noise about his character, David Feherty’s comments to Sports Illustrated only turned up the volume.
Making the media rounds to promote his eponymous TV show on the Golf Channel, SI did a roll call of names on Tour, asking Feherty to give his thoughts on each subject. When the discussion rolled to Reed, Feherty didn’t mince words.
“Jesus. You can put that in there actually. Just Jesus,” Feherty said on Reed. “I mean, I don’t even know what to say. It’s just, it’s going to follow him for the rest of his life.”
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“I’m not even sure that he’s polarizing,” Feherty continued. “I’m not sure there’s too many people on the other side, you know what I mean? I mean, “there is no God” was the first thing I said after he’d won last week. There is no God, you know, that’s proof of it right there. Amazing. I mean, he is amazing. He’s Captain Oblivious, just can let everything run off his back. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Mentioned above, Koepka—along with the likes of Bryson DeChambeau, Marc Leishman, and Cam Smith—have already made similar comments on Reed, while Kostis claimed he had seen Reed cheat multiple times on the No Laying Up podcast. However, unlike Kostis, Feherty is still working; in fact, he was on the NBC telecast during Reed’s win. Feherty’s also unquestionably the most popular on-air personality in the sport, and though he has a history of colorful commentary, he’s rarely been one to aim vitriol or acidic statements toward players.
Feherty finished by saying if he did see a player cheat, he would say something, albeit not on TV. “You point that out to your producer for sure,” Feherty said. “Tell them that you saw something happen and then, it’s kind of the producer’s decision.”
Feherty is working NBC’s broadcast of the Honda Classic this weekend. Reed is not in the field.