DUBLIN, Ohio — Of all the people charting Tiger Woods’s progress as he tries to find his way back to the winner’s circle, Patrick Reed possesses perhaps the keenest perspective. Reed was grouped with Woods in the Bahamas in December during Woods’s first competitive round after his fourth back surgery, and Reed played alongside him again on Saturday during the third round of the Memorial Tournament.
Both times, Reed watched Woods produce shots so pure they could have been lifted from an instructional video. Both times, he saw Woods briefly grab a share of the lead. But it was the differences in the two rounds, played six months apart, that made the biggest impression on Reed.