Patrick Reed's turbulent rise

— -- AUGUSTA, Ga. -- The last time Patrick Reed barreled into the hometown of the Masters and created a new-sheriff-in-Dodge kind of stir, the welcoming committee was not so welcoming. In the weeks after his arrival nearly five years ago, his teammates at Augusta State could hardly stand him, and his coach could not fathom a day when this transfer from the University of Georgia would be worth the trouble he was causing, times 10.

Josh Gregory suspended Reed for the first two events of the 2009-10 season for violations of team rules he'd prefer to remain unspecified. The Georgia coach, Chris Haack, had warned his Augusta State counterpart that Reed was something of a wild colt that needed to be tamed, this after a series of issues -- including an arrest for underage drinking and possession of a fake ID -- made Reed a one-and-done Bulldog following a few tournaments in the fall.

"Chris was very candid," said Gregory, now the coach at SMU. "He told me, 'You're going to have your hands full. Patrick can really play, but he needs constant monitoring.'"

In his mind, Gregory had to take the gamble. Haack already had won two national titles at Georgia, and he had the requisite talent in his program (in future PGA Tour winners Harris English and Russell Henley) to seriously challenge for a third. He didn't need Reed, and Gregory did. The Augusta State coach needed one of the nation's best amateurs to transform his Division I program at a Division II commuter school into something the guardians of college golf would talk about forever.

But first, Gregory had to assure Reed he would never realize his lifelong dream of playing next door in the Masters unless he grew up, and grew up fast. The former All-American junior golfer from San Antonio and state high school champion from Baton Rouge wore out Georgia with his high-maintenance act, and he was on the verge of going 0-for-2 at Augusta State.

Long before he announced to the planet last month that he is among its top five golfers, inspiring a scaled-down version of the storm Richard Sherman kicked up after the NFC Championship Game, Reed was known for projecting a vibe of superiority and for doing too much talking for his own good. "He shot his mouth off early on when he shouldn't have," said Henrik Norlander, Reed's teammate at Augusta State.

"All I asked him to do was keep his mouth shut and play golf and let his golf clubs do the talking for him," Gregory said. "It was the only way for him to earn the respect of his teammates.

"Patrick was on his final strike, and he knew that. If he didn't shape up, he couldn't go anywhere else. Even if he made the tour at that point, maturity-wise he would've gotten eaten up. I told him he was never going to make it if he didn't get things under control."

Yes, Patrick Reed eventually got things under control. He showed up at Augusta National on Monday saying he'd wear red again in the final round in honor of his idol, Tiger Woods, whose absence here isn't the only reason the 23-year-old Reed might win the first major in which he's ever competed. His victory at Doral in the WGC-Cadillac Championship was his third in seven months, notarizing his staggering belief in himself (think Ian Poulter's ego on steroids) and encouraging him to see contention on Sunday's back nine as a realistic endgame.

Can this trash-talker with the young Tiger mentality and the young Jack Nicklaus body actually win the Masters on his first try? Win, lose or withdraw, this much is already clear:

What a long, strange, turbulent trip to Augusta National it's been.

Patrick's first gift after he was born was a plastic set of golf clubs waiting for him on the kitchen table, but his father, Bill, didn't have designs on the PGA Tour. A manager in the health care industry, Bill said he saw how sales reps were paired with executives during corporate outings, and figured he'd start working early on his son's business career-to-be.

When Reed was 9, Peter Murphy, a coach under Hank Haney, started working with him on Haney's ranch in McKinney, Tex., and he never felt he was dealing with some uncoachable phenom. From day one, all the teacher saw was a respectful student, one who was kind to Murphy's younger son and who had never met a shot under pressure he was afraid to try.

"Patrick never worried about finishing second or third if it meant blowing up on the last hole," Murphy said. "He tried to win at all costs."

Reed would stay at Murphy's place in Dallas on weekends, hit hundreds upon hundreds of practice balls over nine hours, eat dinner, putt on the backyard green under the lights and then rise early the next morning to do it all over again.

Reed worked with Murphy at the ranch at the same time Woods was tweaking his swing with Haney. "Patrick took a lot away from Tiger's demeanor, and his intimidation, the way Tiger had an air about him," Murphy said. "Patrick tried to portray a little of that when playing himself. He wanted to show people that he wouldn't back down."

The kid took on every dog-leg in sight, and over time Reed became a dominant player locally, regionally, even nationally, taking his game places his family never imagined.

Patrick kept winning tournaments despite "playing up" against older boys, and when his family moved to Louisiana, he landed at University Lab High School in Baton Rouge. "He was kind of the talk of the school for sure," said one of his University teammates, Craig Chandler.

"He'd competed all over the country, and everyone was saying this is the guy who will help us win a state championship. He was almost kind of a mercenary, a ringer for our team. He was fiercely competitive and always so sure of himself on and off the course, and very unapologetic about it, too. There were times I was taken aback by it."

Another University teammate, Darren Bahnsen, was taken aback by Reed's fearless approach to an impossibly cruel game. The first time they played together, Bahnsen watched Reed cut a 300-yard drive around the corner of a par 4 that stopped seven feet from the hole before he sank the eagle putt.

"If you ever challenged him at something, he answered it every single time," Bahnsen said. "In one practice round I hit a drive down the middle, about 275 yards, and felt good about it. Patrick said, 'Man, that's a good drive,' and then he got down on two knees and hit his ball 10 yards past me. From his knees."

Though he was two years older, Bahnsen drew confidence from Reed. In fact, he said the whole team did. Reed would help University win a state championship as a mere freshman in 2006, the same year he'd win the Junior British Open. The following season, he outdueled his older rival, future PGA Tour player Andrew Loupe, by blowing away the field with an opening 7-under 65 in winning the individual state title along with a second title for his team.

Even back then, the University coach, Paul Crespo, said Reed thought he would win every time he stepped on the first tee. "And gosh," Crespo said, "it seemed 99.9 percent of the time he did."

Reed's relentless focus on his career goals might've made him unique among the teenage golfers, but neither Chandler nor Bahnsen recalled any problems with Reed, or resentment of him. "Patrick was the nicest kid in the world," Crespo said. "I'm not just saying that. I've got nothing bad to say about the kid. He was polite, mature, and he ... got along with everybody."

This was the blue-chipper everyone wanted, the one who enrolled in online courses to graduate a year early after a move to Augusta, where his father had taken a new job. The Georgia Bulldogs won the recruiting war, like they'd won so many others. But the signing of Patrick Reed would prove to be a Pyrrhic victory.

At 2:33 a.m. on Nov. 8, 2008, University of Georgia police officer Jason Vogt was summoned to the East Campus Village by housing security to meet with a freshman that the officer would describe as "intoxicated." In his incident report, Vogt said he could smell alcohol on Reed's breath. "His speech was slurred and he was unsteady on his feet," the officer wrote, before stating the student presented him with a driver's license that appeared to be altered and showed a false date of birth.