Graeme Storm may want to slip a thank-you note into Patrick Reed’s locker the next time the two cross paths.
In an 11th-hour reprieve, Storm’s European Tour card has been reinstated for the 2017 season because Reed failed to meet the minimum start requirements to maintain his playing privileges.
Players are required to play five “regular” tournaments outside of co-sanctioned majors and WGCs to keep their card. It’s a requirement Reed was on pace to hit before he withdrew from last week’s Turkish Airlines Open. He’s also not in the field this week for the Nedbank Golf Challenge in South Africa, meaning he only made three regular Euro Tour starts this season: the Scottish Open, the Olympics and the Ryder Cup.
That means he won’t be a full-fledged member next year, and it opened up a spot for Storm who thought he had lost his card last month by the narrowest of margins. The 38-year-old Englishman bogeyed the final hole at the regular season-ending Portugal Masters, a costly shot that left Storm just 100 Euros behind David Howell for the 111th and final card.
With Reed now officially taken out of the mix, Storm slid up one spot to No. 111 and avoided what would have been his first trip back to Q-School since 2003.
“It’s an incredible relief,” Storm told the U.K.’s Northern Echo. “I can’t believe the events of the last couple of weeks, when I’ve been told this and that and obviously thought I had lost my card. Now it is just total relief that I’ve got my card back and I don’t have to go back to Tour school. It’s incredible.”
