Patrick Reed ready after final round surprise in 2015

Patrick Reed has a contingency plan this year in case something again happens to one of his clubs during the Masters Tournament.

The former Augusta State star was caught unprepared in the final round last year when the face on his 3-wood caved in on his tee shot on the second hole. Under the Rules of Golf, he could replace the club with another 3-wood because he damaged it in the course of play, not in anger.

There was only one problem. Reed hadn’t brought a backup set of clubs, forcing him to hit driver off tees he normally would have hit 3-wood.

“Unfortunately, I played the rest of the round with 13 clubs,” said the Texas native, who still shot 2-under-par 70.

Does he carry a backup set now?

“Oh yeah,” Reed said. “Unfortunately, it happened. You’ve just got to make sure you’ve got a backup set with you at all times just in case something fluky like that happens or you’re up against a tree and you bend something.”

Reed is still amazed at what happened with his 3-wood.

“It felt like there was no golf ball,” he said when he made contact with the ball. “And I looked down and the entire face of my club was caved in. I could see all the way inside the head. I’ve always heard of people caving in drivers or cracking the face of a driver but I’ve never heard of somebody blowing a hole through a 3-wood. So, having to play without a 3‑wood and only a driver, it made it tough.”

He was unable to reach the par-5 eighth hole in two shots because he normally hits a driver and then a 3-wood, Reed said. And he typically hits 3-wood off the tees on Nos. 3, 5, 10 and 13.

“There were a lot of holes that I had to kind of wing it and try to figure out what I wanted to do,” he said.

The result was a trade-off of sort on how he played the course off the tee, he said.

“I guess the aggressiveness helped at some points (because he was forced to hit driver), but also it got me in trouble on a couple holes,” Reed said. “But I was able to manage and unfortunately I had two bogeys kind of later in the round, but besides that, it was a solid day.”

Solid is how Reed, the former Augusta State All-American and four-time PGA Tour winner, described his 2015 Masters. In his second appearance, he shot par-or-better in three of the four rounds (70-72-74-70) and tied for 22nd place. He missed the cut in his 2014 debut with rounds of 73-79.

“It was better,” Reed said. “I felt a little more comfortable with the course. I felt like I hit the ball a little better. I putted decent; I won’t say I putted great. That seems to be the main thing around there. You’ve got to putt well. You need to know where to leave yourself on all the flags. I still got myself last year on a couple of spots where I didn’t put myself in the right spot and unfortunately those were where most of my bogeys came from.”

Reed, who famously said he considered himself a top-5 player in the world when he won at Doral in 2014, cracked the top 10 for the first time in his career early this year. His ranking had soared when he went on a torrid streak around the world from early November through Jan. 10.

He tied for third in Hong Kong, tied for 10th in Malaysia, tied for seventh in the HSBC Champions in China, was second in the BMW Masters in China, tied for 10th in the DP World Tour Championship in Dubai and was second in the PGA Tour’s Tournament of Champions.

“Anytime you do that you feel better,” he said of his improved ranking, “but at the end of the day we’ve got to go out and play to try to win golf tournaments. If we do that, then the world ranking will take care of itself.”