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.