The locker room at Liberty National was relatively quiet yesterday morning when Patrick Reed bumped into Jordan Spieth, the fellow twentysomething he vanquished two days earlier in a stirring two-hole playoff victory at the Wyndham Championship.
"You definitely won that tournament,'' the 20-year-old Spieth said to Reed, 23, with admiration in his voice. "You played so well, and watching you hit a shot like that. … I know you'll never forget it, but I'll never forget it either because I witnessed the best shot I've ever seen.''
The shot in question was the 7-iron Reed hit on the second playoff hole to 7 feet from the flag from a gnarly lie under overhanging trees and just a foot or two from out-of-bounds stakes. Reed made the putt for birdie — a putt he said "felt like 40 feet'' — to win his first career PGA Tour event.
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YOU MAY KISS YOUR PRIZE: Patrick Reed and his wife/caddie Justine celebrate after his first career win at last week's Wyndham Championship.
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Justine Reed
The life-altering victory turned both Reed and his wife/caddie, Justine, into minor celebrities at this week's Barclays Championship, the first leg of the FedEx Cup playoffs.
Reed said he was "mobbed'' yesterday morning on the practice range by fellow players and caddies with words of congratulations. He and Justine still were fielding some of the "hundreds'' of text messages and emails overloading their cell phones while he was playing his practice round.
While he played the front-nine, fans and marshals asked Reed, who before Sunday was virtually unrecognizable at tournaments, to pose with his wife for pictures and they fawned over the couple as if they were Phil and Amy Mickelson.
"It's a good feeling; a good problem to have,'' Reed said. "It's just something new to us.''
Emphasis on the word "us.'' Patrick and Justine Reed are "Team Reed.''
"It's a family business,'' Patrick said.
Every day is equal parts business trip and vacation adventure for the two, who are living a dream and don't plan on stopping anytime soon.
Because of how petite she is (5-foot-1, 102 pounds) with her blonde locks falling from beneath her Callaway cap and her husband's Tour bag half her size in weight but looking bigger than that, Justine, 25, has become more recognizable than Patrick.
She passed her first test run as a caddie the day Patrick filled his bag with everything short of a Rodney Dangerfield "Caddyshack" tapped beer keg in 100-degree temperatures in Texas.
"I could barely lift the bag myself,'' Patrick said. "I was struggling the last few holes and she looked like it was her first hole.''
Justine earned two degrees at LSU — one in health administration and another in nursing (she's a registered nurse). But caddying for her husband just seemed right to her.
In the heat of the most pressure-packed moments Sunday at the Wyndham Championship, Justine was stoic and calm compared to the demonstrative Patrick.
Justine calmly went about her business, reading the yardage book and methodically delivering instructions. Patrick looked like he was going to tear a rotator cuff while quickly ripping the tee out of the ground after hitting his drives.
"I'm a ticking time bomb,'' Patrick said.
"I'm usually the composed one,'' Justine said. "I feel like the less reaction he gets out of me the better. It creates a good balance.''
"I don't ever want anyone else on the bag,'' Patrick said. "As long as I'm playing, I want her caddying for me. I can't imagine winning without sharing it with her on the bag. I couldn't have won [Sunday] without her. I wouldn't be here right now without her.''
If Patrick — or anyone else — needed further validation about Justine's value as a caddie, her read on the 7-foot winning birdie putt on that fateful second playoff hole Sunday sealed it all.
"I saw it going one way and she saw it going the other way,'' Patrick said. "I played it the way she saw it and I knew with a foot to go that it was center cut. She gets 100 percent of that ($954,000) paycheck. I'll take the trophies. She can have the paychecks.''
It is, indeed, quite a business model. Family business at its textbook finest.
mark.cannizzaro@nypost.com
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