The Loop

Tiger Woods paired with Ryder Cup buddy/protege Patrick Reed for first round back

November 28, 2016
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Tiger Woods and Patrick Reed bonded during the recent Ryder Cup. Now they'll have plenty of time to rehash those Minnesota memories in the Bahamas.

The pairings for the first round of the Hero World Challenge were released on Monday and Woods and Reed will play together in the noon group. Woods will be making his first tournament start since finishing T-10 at the 2015 Wyndham Championship and undergoing two back surgeries.

Here's a look at the full pairings for Thursday's first round:

Reed, on the other hand, is coming off the best season of his young career. He had 11 top 10s, including his fifth PGA Tour title at the Barclays, and he led the U.S. to its first Ryder Cup victory since 2008 with a dazzling (and at times, loud) display of golf at Hazeltine. It was also there where Reed grew close to Woods as one of the four members of the vice captain's pod.

"We played nine holes on the first day, and the whole group, it was so windy, they only wanted to play nine. I decided I wanted to go see the back nine, so I just walked the back nine backwards," Reed said on the eve of the Ryder Cup. "He was like, "All right, well, let's go." And he walked it with me, helping me figure out the golf course. You don't get that very often. And to have somebody do that for you, especially a guy like Tiger Woods, it meant a lot to me."

In addition to taking Reed under his wing, Woods also went to bat for him when captain Davis Love III was considering resting Reed and partner Jordan Spieth for one of the sessions.

"I finally just said to Tiger, 'Are we playing them or are we sitting them?'" Love admitted after Day 2. "He said, 'No, you have to send them back out there, they are playing so well.'"

Now we can only hope to see Woods and Reed playing well together this week. Watching two guys dressed in red and black and exchanging fist pumps on Sunday would be fun, no?