Europe’s tormentor in chief may well be afforded special salvation from the same continent. Patrick Reed’s leading role in the USA’s Ryder Cup success at Hazeltine has apparently enhanced the desire of Keith Pelley, the European Tour’s chief executive, to keep the 26-year-old as part of his business equation.
Reed’s late withdrawal from the Turkish Airlines Open means that unless the Texan makes a similarly belated call to play in the Nedbank Challenge at Sun City next week, he will not feature in the requisite five European Tour events to be eligible for 2017 membership. Ordinarily players must sit out for a year before reapplying. The fact this tournament in Turkey is taking place, plus two of Reed’s counting competitions were the Olympics and Ryder Cup, would hardly seem to boost his case for special treatment.
Yet that is precisely what Pelley is of a mind to offer. Speaking as round one of the tournament got under way, the chief executive insisted Reed’s status is befitting an exceptional circumstance.
“Absolutely, as a chief executive’s exemption, yes,” Pelley said when asked if Reed could be permitted to rejoin the European Tour next year. “Patrick hasn’t emphatically decided if he is going to play in South Africa. He was planning to play in Turkey. He chose, and we respect that, not to play in Turkey. We still have a couple of invites for next week that we always hold back. He might decide to play in South Africa.
“The rules and regulations are pretty straightforward; it would be my decision to keep him as a full member of the European Tour. Obviously the justification would be based on his desire to have wanted to play in Turkey.”
Pelley was unable to clarify whether others had been handed the same exemption in the past. Quite logically, other professionals would be entitled to question the point of eligibility criteria if Reed does keep his place for next season.
“Patrick would like to play over here a little bit more,” Pelley said. “Being a top-10 player in the world, we would like him to play over here. We would like him to play in events in the spring and summer next year, we are talking to him about that. He has gone through new management so he has kind of had to figure this out on his own.
“It would not affect anybody other than it would strengthen fields and bring more world-ranking points. I think if you asked the members if they wanted Patrick Reed to play five, six, seven, eight events next year they would all agree based on the world-ranking points he would bring to the event.”
Pelley also floated the idea of floodlit golf as a professional option before too long. “I think you would get buy-in from 95% of the actual players,” he claimed. “It is different though, with the shadows, and if somebody’s eyesight is not 100% then they might push back, but we will definitely have a competition for money under the lights next year.”
Danny Willett is clearly among the minority 5%. “That would be a useless idea,” the Masters champion said. “It would be OK for a giggle but not for a real tournament.”
In broad daylight near Antalya South Africa’s George Coetzee snatched the first‑round lead with a Thursday 64, seven-under par. This was a shot better than Thorbjorn Olesen’s early effort, and there were 12 more players within three of Coetzee.
“I’ve been feeling like I’ve been playing well for the last couple of weeks,” the leader said. “The game is finally starting to come together and it’s nice to see the scores starting to show.” Willett produced a welcome glimmer of form with a two‑under-par 69.
Lee Westwood’s outward nine of 30 was ruined by a back nine which was 10 shots worse. “It wasn’t really a tale of two halves,” Westwood said. “It was a tale of hit it awful on the range and hit it awful all 18 holes. It was an absolute embarrassment tee to green.”
Ewan Murray travelled courtesy of Turkish Airlines
