Patrick Reed would be the Masters champion of our fractured times

Patrick Reed and his caddie look on during the first round of the 2026 Masters. Getty Images AUGUSTA, Ga. — For years the Masters has marked a moment of reunion on the calendar — PGA Tour players alongside LIV golfers for the first time in eight months.

And here, in 2026? No different. Except that one relevant player falls oddly outside of either camp: Patrick Nathaniel Reed.

Reed is the only player in transition at the moment — “doing my time,” as he called it Thursday — playing a few scrappy international tournaments outside of the majors, as he moves from a life on LIV to a renewed life on the PGA Tour. That alone would make him the Masters champion of these weird, fractured times, were he to turn his first-round 69 into a second green jacket. But it would be so much more than that, right?

A Reed win would serve as an important reminder that it is players and their own history who make a golf tour, not the other way around. The wizards with the wands — the beloved ones and the heels — have been in control the whole time. Confident, self-assured players like Reed are the reason LIV was able to exist in the first place.