The Loop

Missing Links: '[Patrick Reed's] not bad guy at all, but a refreshing presence'

October 18, 2014

Stories of interest you might have missed…

Patrick Reed, once a punching bag for having declared himself a top-five player, continues to win over crowds, particularly in Europe. "If truth be told, of course, he's not the bad guy at all but a refreshing presence in a sport where characters are always welcome," Derek Lawrenson writes in the Daily Mail. "The British crowds have developed a soft spot for him already and, as we learned three weeks ago in Scotland, he can really play."

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Patrick Reed draws a crowd at World Match Play (Getty Images photo)

There was a time, in 1981, when Seve Ballesteros was summarily rejected for a berth on the European Ryder Cup team following a spat over appearance fees in European Tour events. He responded by becoming the first European to win the World Match Play championship and proving "once and for all that the man could play matchplay, that his omission from the Ryder Cup team was looking more and more ridiculous as time progressed, and that he was still Europe's major force," Steven Pye writes in the Guardian.

It's well known that hockey players love their golf, but on Long Island, they love their golf for charity, too, according to this column by Newsday's Mark Herrmann. "The point is that the Islanders were there, and they still are. At a time when we all are mulling the team's impact on Long Island, it could be said that, aside from the four Stanley Cups, the Islanders' greatest legacy is that they have helped raise millions of dollars. They have done it with their time, their reputations and, usually, their woods, irons and putters."

The new chief executive of the Royal & Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews, Martin Slumbers, won't have to deal with the issue of women members, though he likely won't elude the issue of gender equality in general. "His appointment comes less than a month after the R&A's proposal to admit women members received backing from 85 per cent of the club's worldwide membership…That decision…lifted a potential dark cloud above the head of the new chief executive, though whether or not the three men-only clubs on the Open Championship rota - Muirfield, Royal Troon and Royal St George's - follow suit is likely to come under Slumbers' watch rather than his predecessor's," Martin Dempster of the Scotsman writes in this profile of Slumbers.

"An Irish proverb: A man who holds good cards would never say if they were dealt wrong. I have a feeling, friendly and accommodating as he is, that Padraig Harrington owns such a competitive nature," columnist Ed Grainey writes in the Las Vegas Review-Journal in this look at Harrington's positive outlook even as his career has taken a wrong turn.