This sort of thing may come back to haunt me, but I don't mind. You're the parent. You set the boundaries. Your kid's a jerk with one obsession, that's easy. You take it away. I got a 6 year old who would play video games all day if I let him. He's good at it. Doesn't mean I let him wrap himself about the axle about video games. I insist that he become a reasonably balanced human being. You can encourage talents without letting those talents become their sole source of worth.
Honestly, which would you rather raise: A top-10 golfer who's also a total irrevocable jerk, or a top-100 golfer who's pleasant to be around? Any kid who wraps up the entirety of their self-worth in something they do rather than the kind of person they are, and any parent who lets or even encourages the development of that sort of person, deserves everything they get out of it, emotionally and mentally, IMO.
Side note: God, please don't let my kids become highly talented jerks.
As for Reed himself, while it casts a lot of negative light on how he acted in college, especially as far as golf and college life, well, I know I wouldn't want to spend the rest of my life answering for the kind of person I was between 17 and 22. I think most people who play golf competitively are half-crazy to start with anyway. Patrick Reed is a bit older now, a dad and a husband and all of that, and I think that probably changes a guy. I'm not saying he hasn't stopped being a jerk. He's plainly a jerk. If he wasn't a jerk, there's a decent chance we wouldn't have a thread about him largely centered on his alleged most jerky moments. But then again, the thread where we talk about him would be the same "These new guys are all boring" that follows so many of these new young guys on tour. Also, no one is writing articles about them subjectively analyzing their mom's social media presence.
