Jordan Spieth once insisted that he had an awesome relationship with Patrick Reed despite the infamous press conference following the 2018 Ryder Cup in France.

Spieth and Reed once looked destined to become Team USA’s greatest ever pairing in the Ryder Cup. They won two and went unbeaten during their three matches together at Gleneagles in 2014.

And in 2016, they delivered 2.5 points from their four matches at Hazeltine. Reed went on to produce a stunning performance in the singles to defeat Rory McIlroy. They were also dominant at the Presidents Cup the following year.

So it would have come as a surprise to many when Jim Furyk opted to not put the two men together during the 2018 Ryder Cup at Le Golf National.

Spieth played in all four sessions with Justin Thomas, while Reed featured twice over the first two days alongside Tiger Woods.

With the Americans suffering a heavy defeat, questions were asked about not pairing Spieth and Reed together. Reed subsequently claimed that Spieth had decided that he did not want to play with him. He was critical of how Furyk handled the situation.

However, Spieth went on to explain to Subpar in 2020 that there was no lingering ill-feeling between himself and the 2018 Masters champion.

“It was 2015 in the Presidents Cup in Korea, and Jay Haas was the captain. He came to me and was like, ‘hey, who do you want to play with this week?’ Which is kind of a cool position to be in. He’s like, ‘you’re leading our team, who do you want to play with?’ I was like, ‘well, I want to play with Patrick, we’ve had success last year at the Ryder Cup. I’d love to play a round with DJ [Dustin Johnson], I think that would be so much fun’. I’ve actually battled with DJ more than I have anybody else on the PGA Tour, whether it’s majors or PGA Tour events, and I’ve loved it. I’ve played more groups in his group than I have anyone else. So I was like, ‘I want to play with DJ, this would be awesome. I’d love playing from his drives, this would be great. And then he’s going to have to play from mine. He’s going to be like I don’t really want to hit seven iron’,” he said.

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“I had already played with DJ, and then played with Patrick later in the week. He made a birdie, he came over and he’s like, ‘that’s what you get for playing with DJ’. I was like, ‘we both made eight birdies through 14 holes and destroyed whoever we were playing’. It was almost like I’d fired him up more, playing with somebody else. 

“But I grew up with Justin. He’s one of my best friends in the entire world. Since we were 13, we’ve been the biggest fans of each other through our entire process of junior golf, college golf, professional golf, into winning major championships, being number one in the world. We’ve accomplished these massive goals we set out when we were 13 at Mansfield, we were paired there and that’s where we met. So obviously I want to play with him. This would be so awesome. 

“The team room, it was fine. We all had people we were going to play with. When we were getting ready for the tournament, I think it was myself, Tiger, Justin, and Patrick, which was freaking badass to play in a pod with Tiger at the Ryder Cup. You might be paired with him, even though we knew he was going to be Justin’s partner if I played with Patrick, and then Patrick and Tiger might play together. I also didn’t think it would be a big deal if I played with Justin, and Patrick got Tiger. It doesn’t seem like something that would upset people, that you get Tiger. It was part of the pod. 

“For me, we had grown up together, we had accomplished these goals together, we’re finally at the coolest stage in golf, the Ryder Cup, let’s go out and kick some ass together. That’s what we wanted to do. Everyone was fine, nothing was a big deal. Things were raised afterwards, and then Patrick and I have been awesome since. It really was blown out for six months, and then other than that, it’s been nothing.” 

Jim Furyk will have learnt plenty from his management of Patrick Reed at Le Golf National

While Furyk made some big mistakes with Reed, it is difficult to make the case that he was wrong to put Spieth and Thomas together in Paris.

They won three points from four matches together, with Thomas ending the week alongside Tommy Fleetwood as the second highest points scorer across the two teams.

Brooks Koepka was the only American player who came close to matching Reed’s win rate of nearly 78 per cent leading into that week. So pairing Reed with Woods, who would have inevitably been exhausted following his Tour Championship victory the previous week, was an error.

It was not Furyk’s biggest misstep. Few will forget Phil Mickelson and Bryson DeChambeau being sent out together in foursomes. But it is certainly one of the mistakes Furyk will have on his mind as he looks to secure a better result in 2027.