Patrick Reed wants an excerpt from a forthcoming book claiming he cheated and stole from teammates in college retracted ahead of its release.
Author Shane Ryan published an excerpt from the book, “Slaying the Tiger: A year inside the ropes on the new PGA Tour," about Reed on the website tobaccoroadblues.com in January. In the excerpt, anonymous sources claim Reed, during his brief time at the University of Georgia, stole a putter and $400 in cash from a teammate on the golf team. Further anonymous sources at University of Georgia and Augusta State University (now Georgia Regents University), where he transferred after leaving Georgia, claim Reed was caught cheating during qualifying events for both squads.
Reed told Golf Channel on Sunday he will instruct his lawyers to send letters to the book's publisher, Ballantine Books, and Ryan asking for a full retraction of those claims. Reed said he has obtained sworn statements from University of Georgia golf coach Chris Haack and former Augusta State coach Josh Gregory saying Ryan's claims are untrue. He also said he was dismissed from the Georgia golf team for a pair of drinking incidents, nothing related to theft.
“I was shocked. That was the first time I heard about it. To read something like and see how degrading and false it is, to have someone say something like that without coming to me first and asking me, it’s shocking,” Reed said.
If the excerpt is not retracted, Reed said he could consider suing Ryan and the publisher.
“All options are open. We’re not 100 percent sure on that yet,” he said.
Ryan responded to Reed's claims on Monday via Twitter, saying, "Just want to say quickly here that I stand behind my reporting 100%, and I also stand behind the truth of what I wrote."
