Patrick Reed feared for his life during recent hospital stay but recovered to play in 2021 Tour Championship

Patrick Reed is playing in a 30-man golf tournament this week with $46 million on the line. This is where he’s ended his season for most of the last decade on the PGA Tour, but he has to be especially grateful for this year’s edition of the 2021 Tour Championship given that, two weeks ago, he wasn’t sure whether he’d ever leave the hospital.

Reed was hospitalized during The Northern Trust, the first of three FedEx Cup Playoffs events, with what he describes as bilateral pneumonia. He missed both that tournament and last week’s BMW Championship, slipping all the way to 30th in the FedEx Cup standings and nearly missing out on the Tour Championship.

That was far from his top concern.

“First couple days, they were sitting there telling me that make sure you text your family quite a bit, talk to your family, because you just don’t know,” said Reed on Thursday at East Lake Golf Club. “I mean, this is not good. We’re not in a good spot right now.

“With how the hospitals are these days because of COVID and everything that’s going on, it doesn’t matter what’s going on. They won’t allow people in there, so it’s only you in there. So I’m sitting there and those first two days the only thing that was going through my mind is, ‘I’m not going to be able to tell my kids goodbye. I’m not going to be able to tell them I love them. I’m not going to be able to tell my wife that I love her and give her a hug.’”

That’s dark for anyone, even more so a professional athlete who just entered his 30s. Reed said the pneumonia was in the lower lobes of his lungs “which is where a lot of deaths and people pass away from.”

Reed said he is vaccinated against COVID-19 and was not tested for it while in the hospital. However, that contradicts a previous report that cited him saying he was later determined to be positive for COVID-19 after the original bilateral pneumonia diagnosis. Reed tweeted earlier this week that he was not sure whether he had contracted the delta variant.

While there is still confusion over his exact diagnosis, the seriousness of the health scare Reed experienced is quite clear.

He took a bus to East Lake from Houston this week but said he is cleared to fly in an airplane starting Monday. He opened the Tour Championship a 2-over 72 in Round 1 as he tries to play his way onto the U.S. Ryder Cup team as a captain’s pick.

“I saw [captain Steve Stricker] yesterday,” said Reed. “He came out to me when I was on 9 and I hit a hybrid into 9 to 8 feet and I made the putt for him. The biggest thing is — talking with Stricks and stuff — is just making sure I’m healthy, and I think the biggest thing for me this week is just to see kind of where I’m at. And I know, by the Ryder Cup, my game’s going to be where it needs to be, as long as I feel like my health is where it needs to be and as long as I feel like I can sustain through rounds of golf.”

The Ryder Cup is obviously secondary to Reed’s health right now, but it will be part of the story going forward. With just three rounds remaining in his season, it seems Reed has been given a reprieve as it relates to both his job and his well-being. Given his history, I suspect he’ll make the most of it as he plays out the rest of the week at East Lake just two weeks after having to contemplate whether he would ever step foot outdoors again.