WGC-HSBC Champions: Patrick Reed vows to clean up act after day one outburst

Ryder Cup star Patrick Reed has vowed to learn from his mistakes after issuing a full apology for his foul-mouthed outburst on the opening day of the WGC-HSBC Champions in China.

Reed is set to be fined by the PGA Tour after being caught on camera not only swearing at himself, but also using language which could be interpreted as homophobic.

Television commentators apologised after Reed was heard mouthing profanities after a bogey on the first hole, his 10th of the day, during Thursday's first round.

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The 24-year-old later apologised for his "unacceptable" choice of words via Twitter and was similarly contrite when speaking to reporters following his second round on Friday.

"Today I felt like I handled myself pretty well and yesterday I did not," Reed said. "Yesterday I made a stupid error, that's for sure. (I'm) sorry for definitely the words that I said and everything that went on on number one, which was my 10th hole. (It) never should have happened. Golf is a gentleman's game.

"Unfortunately it happened to me and all I can do is just learn from it and move on, and hopefully continue playing well and keep giving fans something to watch.

Temper issues

"I'm young and growing up, I had temper issues, on and off the golf course. I live and die through every shot. I love the game so much and I expect perfection, but no one is ever going to be perfect in this game. It's just one of those things that I have to learn how to deal with and know how to handle and when I do a good job on it, I definitely play better. It got the best of me this week.

"The passion I have for the game is never going to change. It's just if I'm ever going to get upset at myself, especially after a Ryder Cup and at the level of golf I'm playing nowadays, you can't have outbursts. Unfortunately I did and happened to be on camera and it just happened."

Masters champion Bubba Watson revealed Reed had shown him the incident and noticed how clearly the outburst had been picked up on television.

"I said, 'Well, we always learn something out of everything situation. So we obviously learned the microphones are pretty good over here,"' Watson joked.