From 'teegate' to 'treegate' - it seems impossible to keep Patrick Reed and controversies apart.The American, who now plies his trade as a contracted LIV Golf player, was embroiled in yet another rules controversy during Sunday's third round of the $9 million Dubai Desert Classic, when his ball got lodged in one of the palm trees to the right of the drivable, par-4 17th green.Reed said he could identify his ball on the tree after looking through a pair of binoculars and proceeded to take a drop right under the tree with a one-shot penalty.
He ended up making a bogey in a three-under par round of 69 as he ended the day tied in fourth place at 11-under par for the rain-hit tournament, four behind leader Rory McIlroy.If Reed was unable to locate his ball, he could not have declared it unplayable.
That would have forced him to go back to the tee and hit what would have been his third shot.However, a social media post suggested that television replays showed Reed's ball disappearing into an adjacent tree, although the footage did not seem conclusive."I got lucky that we were able to look through the binoculars and you have to make sure it's your ball and how I mark my golf balls is I always put an arrow on the end of my line," said Reed."You could definitely see and identify the line with the arrow on the end, and the rules official was there to reconfirm and check it to make sure it was mine as well."??#RULES incident — after slow motion review, Patrick Reed’s golf ball appears to have landed in a different tree than the one he had identified to officials ??
pic.twitter.com/e0AJ5te5P6Patrick Reed identifies his ball in left of the 3 trees yet the tv camera clearly shows it going in the right hand tree??