When the man with the one of the best short games in golf hit the longest of long shots, he had no idea what happened to his ball.

So Patrick Reed raised his palms upward, as if to ask for an answer. Then he pointed his left index finger downward, wondering if the ball somehow found the cup on No. 4 at Oakmont Country Club.

His affirmation came from the roar of the gallery, so Reed flashed two fingers to signal that he holed his second shot on the 621-yard par 5.

PATRICK REED ALBATROSS AT THE U.S. OPEN ????????

(via @usopengolf)pic.twitter.com/GFFgAD8od7

— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) June 12, 2025

By the end of his round, Reed’s smile had turned to a scowl after a triple-bogey on 18 to finish 3-over-par 73 in the first round of the 125th U.S. Open. For a moment, it seemed to spoil that he had the shot of the day.

“It doesn’t matter,” Reed snapped when asked about his feat. “It’s just one hole. There’s 71 other holes to play in a golf tournament. One hole doesn’t mean jack, to be honest with you. It was a 3-wood I hit from 287, and it went in.”

Well, actually, it does mean jack.

Reed became only the fourth golfer to accomplish an albatross in U.S. Open history. Chen Tze-chung did it 1985 at Oakland Hills, Shaun Micheel in 2010 at Pebble Beach and Nick Watney in 2012 at Olympic Club, all on par 5s. It should be taken into consideration that Reed did it at Oakmont, a course designed to exact revenge even on golf’s greats.

“Oh, it’s awesome,” Reed said, as he started to loosen up. “That’s great, but it’s kind of one of those things that when you finish with a triple it’s really the last thing you’re thinking about.”

It’s hard not to talk about an albatross. pic.twitter.com/BjPvPRD8Gl

— GOLF.com (@GOLF_com) June 13, 2025

What Reed was thinking about was how his driver had been giving him fits lately and how it was halfway decent on Thursday. He finished with five bogeys and a triple bogey and lamented that all of his mistakes were made with hybrids and 3-woods, with exception of the last hole.

“You use something less than the driver to put the ball in position, then every time I tried to do that, I messed that up,” Reed said. “I played the hard holes except for 18 well, and I made the easy holes a mess.”

Reed is bit of a pariah in golf circles, a talent who became the first golfer on the PGA Tour to have three wins before playing in his first major and still no stranger to trouble. He won the 2018 Masters, scoring two eagles on the back 9 for a 67 on Saturday. His success in the Ryder Cup earned him the nickname Captain America. Yet he’s been accused of cheating a couple times, too. Then he defected for LIV Golf.

Yet Reed has finished in the top 25 in six of his last seven starts, including four top-10s. He’s made the cut in nine of 10 attempts at the U.S. Open, with his only miss coming in 2016 at Oakmont.

“I don’t even want to remember 2016. I don’t remember it,” Reed said. “All I know is I went home after Friday and thought, man, that golf course was not only impossible but also thought that I couldn’t wait to get back and try it again. I was doing pretty well there until the last hole.”

Reed had every reason to dwell on No. 18. He got out of a bunker behind the pin on 17 and sank a birdie putt. Then he ended up in front of a bunker on the right fairway on No. 18, only to hit it into the bunker before taking a 7 on the par 4.

That made his albatross all the more meaningful.

“Good thing I made 2 on that hole, because that wiped three of them off,” Reed said. “It really just wiped off the last hole in general.”

Of course, he played No. 4 just about perfect. The hole is famous for its Church Pew bunkers on the left side, a hazard every golfer hopes to avoid. His drive went 322 yards, and the 25-foot downhill drop from tee to green makes it a blind shot. The ball bounced three times and rolled toward the pin and disappeared.

“Going into there, it felt like I was swinging it really well,” Reed said. “It happened to be perfect spot, perfect club. You can’t see anything. All you see is the tower. You’re trying to hit it at the tower. For it to go in is a bonus.”

It wasn’t Reed’s first albatross or his best. He shared the story of getting one in Germany at the Porsche European Open, when his round was interrupted on No. 15 by a rain delay. His wife, Justine, told him that he was in perfect position to finish 3-under. When play resumed, he shot par on the first three holes and cut 5-wood into the hole to finish. Justine offered congratulations without realizing what he had done.

“I was like, ‘Did you actually look at the scorecard?’ She was like, ‘Nah, I just saw you’re 3-under.’ She looked at it and was like, you’ve got to be kidding me!” Reed recalled. “Hey, she told me to get 3-under. She didn’t tell me how to do it. I just got the job done.”

The other came when he was a kid, Reed said, on a par-5 No. 9 at Dominion Country Club in San Antonio. He was on the right side of the fairway, where there were overhanging trees, and side-hit his driver while the group in front of him was on the green.

“This thing rolls up, they turn around and look at me and they start jumping,” Reed said, “because you watch the ball roll right past them and disappear.”

That one Reed actually saw go in the cup.

“The only one I saw was the one where I decided to hit into the group in front of me,” Reed said. “I didn’t know I could get there. I didn’t see two of the three of my albatrosses. I saw only two of my six aces.”

Aside from how he finished his first round, that’s the one thing Reed would change about his albatross at the U.S. Open.

“Oh, I’d love to see it go in. It’s always fun watching the ball disappear,” Reed said. “But, hey, as long as it disappears is all that matters. I don’t care if you see it or not, as long as it goes in the hole. That’s all anyone really cares about.”

It’s just one hole, but it meant something to Patrick Reed, even if his last one temporarily blinded him of his best one.

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