Jeddah: American star Patrick Reed has vowed to take it one shot at a time this weekend at the $25 million LIV Golf Invitational Jeddah, presented by ROSHN, in a bid to lock down a 1-2 finish for 4Aces GC behind captain Dustin Johnson in the inaugural season’s final standings.
Reed finished second behind Eugenio Chacarra at the LIV Golf Invitational Bangkok last weekend, a result that confirmed Johnson as 2022 Individual Champion with an unsurmountable 121 points. Reed’s performance moved the 2018 Masters champion to third place in the standings at 76 points — just three behind Branden Grace and 20 points ahead of reigning Open champion Cameron Smith.
Play good golf
Going into this weekend’s event in Saudi Arabia, the final individual event of the season, Reed said: “It is always on the back of your mind, any time you play in any tournament, you are always thinking about what results will do to certain things. But really, the only thing this week is focus on each day and try to play good golf. If I go and I play well, that takes care of everything. It takes care of the team. It takes care of the individual.
“That’s just something that I have always preached to our team as well as just to my team on the golf course, is that when we are out there, we’re not sitting there worrying about positioning and all that. You go out and play the best golf you can, and if you go out and play the way you are supposed to, everything else will take care of itself.”
Two-time major winner Johnson has been in red-hot form this season with a win and two top-three finishes, and his performances have gone a long way towards locking down top seed for the 4Aces team including Reed, Pat Perez and Talor Gooch ahead of the season-ending LIV Golf Team Championship in Miami later this month.
Great example
Referring to the example being set by captain Johnson, Reed said: “It has been great. As a captain, you are supposed to lead your guys, and that doesn’t just come off the golf course. Also, you have to lead the guys on the golf course.
“To sit here and already lock everything up before the last event, it just shows that he’s not only doing his job off the golf course, but he’s doing his job on the golf course. He’s leading by example playing well, and we’re all trying to do the exact same and kind of follow, and it would be awesome for me to go out and play well this week and have the Aces go 1-2.”
Round One draw:
The first round draw has been published for the $25 million LIV Golf Invitational Jeddah, Saudi Arabia to be held at Royal Greens Golf & Country Club on Friday:
See below pairings for the 12.15 pm shotgun start:
Hole 1: Dustin Johnson, Branden Grace and Patrick Reed.
Hole 2: Cameron Smith, Charl Schwartzel and Carlos Ortiz.
Hole 3: Matthew Wolff, Peter Uihlein and Louis Oosthuizen.
Hole 4: Bryson DeChambeau, Richard Bland and Sam Horsfield.
Hole 6: Charles Howell III, Ian Poulter and James Piot.
Hole 7: Kevin Na, Harold Varner III and Martin Kaymer.
Hole 8: Cameron Tringale, Sadom Kaewkanjana and Scott Vincent.
Hole 9: Hideto Tanihara, Bernd Wiesberger and Shaun Norris.
Hole 10: Wade Ormsby, Jediah Morgan and Hudson Swafford.
Hole 11: Marc Leishman, Phachara Khongwatmai and Pat Perez.
Hole 12: Turk Pettit, Matt Jones and Graeme McDowell.
Hole 14: Phil Mickelson, Chase Koepka and Jason Kokrak.
Hole 15: Brooks Koepka, Sihwan Kim and Laurie Canter.
Hole 16: Lee Westwood, Anirban Lahiri and Abraham Ancer.
Hole 17: Eugenio Chacarra, Henrik Stenson and Paul Casey.
Hole 18: Talor Gooch, Sergio Garcia and Joaquin Niemann.
