(Reuters) – Patrick Reed displayed a single-minded focus, putting a rules controversy that seemingly will never die out of his mind long enough to shoot two-under-par 69 in the opening round at the WGC-Mexico Championship on Thursday.
Reed is still being reminded of the incident for which he received a two-stroke penalty for improving his lie in a sandy waste area at December’s World Challenge in the Bahamas.
World number two Brooks Koepka weighed in earlier this week when asked whether he thought Reed had been cheating.
“Yeah, I don’t know what he was doing, building sand castles in the sand,” Koepka told SiriusXM PGA Tour Radio.
“You know where your club is. I took three months off and I can promise you I know if I touch sand. If you look at the video, obviously he grazes the sand twice and then he still chops down on it.”
Reed declined to respond to Koepka’s comments.
“I’ve said what I have to say about what happened in the Bahamas, and at the end of the day, all I’m trying to do is go out and play good golf and trying to win a golf championship and hopefully run Rory down,” said the 2018 Masters champion.
He was referring to leader Rory McIlroy, who shot 65 for the first-round lead in Mexico City.
Koepka is not playing in the event.
(Reporting by Andrew Both in Cary, North Carolina; Editing by Peter Rutherford)
