The key thing to remember when discussing Patrick Reed’s latest rules saga is that a DP World Tour rules official, in real time, worked with Reed in the search for his ball and talked through how to proceed after being satisfied the ball was identified in the tree. Additionally, the tour issued a statement confirming that Reed handled the situation correctly. However you feel about Reed and his past brushes with the rules, everything he did on the 17th hole in the third round of the Hero Dubai Desert Classic was by the rules, according to the tour running the event.
But, because this is Reed, people are going to go out of their way to ask whether his golf ball was stuck in the tree he thought it was stuck in. Particularly, when there’s video of the shot.
Among those folks is Golf Channel commentator Brandel Chamblee, who quite literally dissected “TreeGate” like it was the Zapruder film during a Golf Channel broadcast on Sunday evening, US time. The only thing missing was a pointer and Chamblee saying “back… and to the left…”.
In the clip from the broadcast, which Chamblee posted to his Twitter account, Golf Channel attempted to pinpoint the exact spot and tree Reed’s ball seemed to enter. That tree, Chamblee argued, was not the same tree that Reed took his drop for an unplayable lie:
If you haven’t seen the video of Patrick Reed’s tee shot at 17, here it is. pic.twitter.com/sgnKcLH4Sf
— Brandel Chamblee (@chambleebrandel) January 30, 2023
The level of “forensics” that Chamblee, who was named as a defendant in an anti-defamation suit brought by Reed last year, uses is pretty intense. Slow-mo, spot-shadowing, where the ball was last seen, etc. We hope the FBI was taking notes.
