NEW YORK (AP) - Patrick Reed blames Jordan Spieth for them not playing together at the Ryder Cup and told The New York Times that U.S. captain Jim Furyk was not smart to sit him out twice.
Europe won the Ryder Cup 17½-10½ at Le Golf National outside Paris. Europe now has won nine of the last 12 times, and it was the third time in its last five victories that it won by seven points or more.
Spieth and Justin Thomas went 3-1, the only American tandem to play all four matches. Reed was paired with Tiger Woods in fourballs, losing both matches, and sitting out both foursomes matches.
In an interview with the Times an hour after the closing news conference, Reed said he was fully expecting Furyk to pair him with Spieth again.
“The issue’s obviously with Jordan not wanting to play with me,” Reed said. “I don’t have any issue with Jordan. When it comes right down to it, I don’t care if I like the person I’m paired with or if the person likes me as long as it works and it sets up the team for success. He and I know how to make each other better. We know how to get the job done.”
They were 4-1-2 in the previous two Ryder Cups and not had any other partners.
On Monday, Spieth was in Bosnia to see his brother, who is playing basketball in a European league. Furyk was traveling.
Thomas was a Ryder Cup rookie who has known Spieth since they were 14, a friendship that coincidentally took root in France when they played for the U.S. in the Evian Junior Masters.
Spieth and Reed were asked at the end of the U.S. press conference Sunday night if they were surprised they didn’t play together. Both looked at each other to see who would respond before Spieth spoke first.
“We were totally involved with every decision that was made,” Spieth said. “We had two potentially fantastic teams (Spieth-Thomas and Woods-Reed) and we went out confidently and tried to play our best.”
Furyk said it was his call to put Spieth and Thomas together.
The news conference ended before Reed had a chance to answer. He told the Times in the interview an hour later that he was looking at Spieth “like I was about to light the room up like Phil in ’14.”
That was a reference to Phil Mickelson’s critical comments about U.S. captain Tom Watson after another American loss at Gleneagles.
Reed and Woods lost both matches to Francesco Molinari and Tommy Fleetwood. In the second match, Woods often was playing the hole by himself because Reed hit into the water, the ankle-deep rough or out-of-bounds. Woods played his lone foursomes match with Bryson DeChambeau and lost that one, too.
“For somebody as successful in the Ryder Cup as I am, I don’t think it’s smart to sit me twice,” Reed said.
Reed won his singles match well after Europe had enough points to win back the Ryder Cup.
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