- Patrick Reed won the Masters on Sunday, but he did not do it wearing his signature color.
- Reed usually wears red during the final round as a tribute to Tiger Woods, though the move has upset many golf fans.
- Nike apparently forced Reed to wear pink on Sunday as part of what he called a "storyline" — and it's a policy that seems unlikely to change anytime soon.
Patrick Reed won the Masters on Sunday, holding off challenges from some of golf's biggest names — but he did it without wearing his signature color, and it appears he won't be allowed to wear it at a major anytime soon.
Reed typically wears a red shirt, black pants, and a black cap during the final round of a tournament, as he did recently at the Valspar Championship.
It's an intentional move to pay homage to his idol Tiger Woods, who has done that for his entire career.
"The best player ever to live when I was growing up wore black pants, a red shirt," Reed told The Augusta Chronicle. "I was growing up watching him. I always thought, you know, it would be cool to wear black and red on Sunday."
Despite Reed's good intentions, the move has angered a lot of golf fans who believe the style is Woods' signature and should be his alone on the PGA Tour.
Those fans got a reprieve on Sunday at the Masters when Reed wore pink instead of red during the final round.
According to Reed, it's a new policy Nike has for its golfers.
Nike is "doing a new thing where all the players stay in the same kind of storyline," Reed said last week. "All of us will be in the same color tomorrow and Saturday and Sunday."
We saw this during the third round on Saturday when Nike's golfers were in a similar shade of blue.
Woods was apparently exempt from the pink dress code on Sunday. He wore his traditional red shirt, albeit muted with a black sweater vest.
It appears that for the foreseeable future, Reed will be required to wear whatever color Nike picks for the final rounds of the major. It also seems unlikely that Nike would put all its golfers in red shirts on Sunday when that has long been Woods' signature look.
In other words, if Nike plans to stick to this "storyline" at all the majors — something it has been doing at tennis Grand Slams for a few years — it will be a long time before Reed is allowed to wear red on Sunday at a major.
In the minds of many golf fans, this should please the golf gods.
More Patrick Reed coverage:
- Golf's newest major champion has a complicated past that has already made him one of the sport's most controversial figures
- Meet Patrick Reed, the controversial Masters champion whose wife was his caddy and who hasn't talked to his family in 6 years
- Fans had a field day when Imagine Dragons got a surprising shoutout after Patrick Reed won the Masters
- Unlikely Masters winner Patrick Reed credits his success to listening to a specific song before play — and it holds an important lesson on peak performance
- Patrick Reed more than doubled his season money total by winning the Masters
