Patrick Reed's Name-Clearing Affidavit: “Please note that this is not an affidavit.”

Patrick Reed and his lawyers cooked up a sitdown with Golf Channel's Todd Lewis to put to bed allegations by writer Shane Ryan of unlawful behavior while in college (theft namely).

The key to his name-clearing effort: affidavits from his former coaches at Georgia and Augusta State which, it turns out, weren't exactly sworn statements of fact.

Stephanie Wei, obtaining the documents through the Georgia Open Records Act, writes:

Well, the “affidavit” from Coach Haack has been obtained under the Georgia Open Records Act, which was made possible because Haack used university counsel. Note that when the document was sent, the Georgia legal affairs representative wrote, “Please note that this is not an affidavit.” (Emphasis mine.) According to a legal affairs officer, the distinction is that an affidavit would have to be sworn officially under oath and notarized for use in court—this document is far more informal. Haack himself confirmed that this is the only document he signed for Reed’s attorneys."

Wei goes on to reveal some word-parsing by Reed's Georgia coach that takes game-playing semantics to a new level, at least for college golf.

Comments

[Liberty Apples]

I'm still trying to find where Reed ever claimed he had ``affidavits''. He makes reference to ``statements''; but never ``affidavits.''

[Lady Liberty]

Apples why let facts get in the way of a good story?!?

[Joe Duffer]

Now I get what Reed is doing. His PR team has decided to approach this, as most wiser folks have advised, by letting it go, but not before throwing out some good denials and statements that play well from a PR standpoint but actually don't specifically refute the charges. Genius.

[DGHcarolina]

I played with Patrick Reed in a Pro Am after he had won his first tournament. His wife Justine was caddying for him. Perfect gentleman - very nice - both of them. Had a phenomenal time spending the day with them.