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TSN Senior Reporter

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Is it possible that Captain America won’t have any fans to shush or wag a finger at when the Ryder Cup is played this September?

Could it be that when the PGA Championship and U.S. Open are held, Patrick Reed isn’t jeered by fans that like to remind him of his improving his lie in a bunker?

And how is the player who feeds off the fans more than any other in golf surviving with such quiet tournaments these days?

There is no golfer better suited to loud, raucous fans than Reed. He feeds off the cheers and the boos, using them to fuel his game and stoke his energy.

But he won’t have that at the PGA Championship, set for Aug. 6-9, which has confirmed it won’t have spectators. It’s also a possibility at the U.S. Open, which is still considering how it will proceed.

But a Ryder Cup without any spectators? That doesn’t sit well with the three-time U.S. team member.

"Without fans," stated Reed, "it just seems like it would be hard for everyone to kind of get up and show the emotion that you normally would whenever you have fans there."

Reed has a history of stirring things up, especially when the event is in Europe. In 2014 in Scotland, he turned to the crowd, put his finger to his lips and shushed them after holing a long putt to help him and his partner Jordan Spieth in their match. He was booed relentlessly but walked off the green with a wide smile.

In 2016 in Chaska, Minn., during a memorable singles battle with Rory McIlroy, he matched the Northern Irishman with a long birdie putt and wagged his finger in a way that said he wasn’t going to be defeated. That time the pro-American side roared, much to Reed’s delight.

Those are just several examples of his antics on the course that light up the often over-served fans and make the Ryder Cup what it is.

This year’s event is slated for Sept. 25-27 at Whistling Straights in Haven, Wisc., but top players such as McIlroy and Brooks Koepka are on record stating they’d prefer to postpone the event for a year rather than go without fans. That is a distinct possibility, and a British newspaper reported on Monday that the Ryder Cup would shift a year down the calendar with the official announcement coming next week.

If it does go ahead, Reed would still show up to play even if the fans didn’t, but he predicted it would be a totally different championship.

"I would think that that event on its own is an absolutely amazing event and it's a team event where you can go out, you want to have that banter back and forth with the crowds," said the eight-time winner on the PGA Tour. "If you're a home team, you basically want that 12th man. If you're the away team, you're expecting to kind of going into a hostile environment."

Without fans, the Ryder Cup would have all the hostility of a yoga session.

Of course Reed is starting to get used to the quiet of tournament golf. The past two weeks, he hasn’t heard any cheering or jeering as the PGA Tour’s post-pandemic restart has been done without fans.

After a solid start at the Charles Schwab Challenge where he tied for seventh, he missed the cut last week at the RBC Heritage. He’s in the field for this week’s Travelers Championship.

"It's definitely different when you step up on the first tee and they announce your name and there's no one there, you just hear crickets basically," Reed said. "When you kind of hit a tee shot and you're used to seeing grandstands and now you're seeing the actual golf course itself. You're not having things impeding your views of anything, and you get on that kind of birdie run and you make your second or third birdie in a row, you're kind of amped up, you want to throw that fist pump but there's no one there. There's no one to throw the fist pump to. There's no crowds going."

For now, the fist pumps will have to wait. It could be a while before Reed can rile up the galleries again.