Watched both Reed & Rory video. Both handled their situations poorly & not in the interest of protecting their integrity or the field.
Even in a club match or a nassau, myself, nor guys I play with, faced with either scenario, would touch their ball without calling opponent over to look and discuss. Yeah, I know, the rules allow them to proceed without consultation -- but, applying our rules require interpretation and assessment...especially in deep rough & soft ground scenarios.
If Nicklaus or Bobby Jones took the same embedded ball relief, even with consultation, and later saw a replay of their ball bouncing, they would, I suspect, withdraw/DQ themselves.
Oh my, no to all of that.
Neither Reed nor Rory did anything wrong here. They protected the field by, for all that we
know, following the Rules. They didn’t drop three clublengths away, they didn’t lift their ball without marking it, etc.
Someone who knows the Rules may find you annoying and slow if you require people to look at your ball all the time. Do you require everyone present when you drop for an unplayable, to make sure you’re measuring properly? Do you require everyone present to agree on the specific location the ball crossed when you hit one past the red stakes? And someone who doesn’t know you but, like the Rules of Golf do, assume that you’re playing with integrity, might start to wonder why you need so many people to watch your every move. (That’s part of the reason I think Patrick called over the RO - he may have thought “people might think I’m trying to cheat here, so I’ll have an RO confirm that he feels it was embedded too, and that’ll help me.”).
And balls can embed even after they bounce: Nicklaus and Jones would likely have known that and played on guilt-free, as they
followed the rules of golf.People insist on putting these
extra restrictions on that don’t exist, under some guise of “integrity” or just pure “showmanship” or something. Just be honest and play golf and follow the Rules and get on with it. Neither Rory nor Patrick did anything, under the Rules, wrong here (that we know about), nor are either of them obligated to do anything else beyond what they did, under the Rules or even “morally” or whatever. They don’t even have to announce it to their playing partners, so they both actually went above and beyond: Patrick by announcing AND confirming with a RO, Rory by announcing and giving time to a fellow competitor if they chose to look.
Also, how the heck do some of you expect to determine if a ball is embedded in 4-6” rough without marking and lifting it? If Reed had left the ball there, Fabel would have surely had him remove it at some point to check the ground beneath. He’s not going to get in there and pry the grass apart to try to look under the ball.
To JVB, and others, does it make any difference at all that the only source Reed sought out was a volunteer who very possibly never saw the ball at all?
Why would it?
I wonder if the decision to change the rules to allow relief from an embedded ball in the rough was such a great idea. If your ball is nestled down in thick rough, is the expectation that everyone will now be digging it out to inspect it? Seems like a move in the wrong direction if the goal is to have people touching the ball less and speeding up play in general.
The PGA Tour and I think the USGA almost always had this rule in effect, as did colleges, amateur events, etc. via the Local Rule. It’s the R&A that wanted it kept as a Local Rule, but since 2019, they’ve flipped. Maybe they’re giving the USGA a turn to have their rule be the standard for awhile. 
JVB would know a billion times more about this than me, but that’s what I’ve heard from a few people. That in the U.S., the Local Rule was almost always in effect. And on the PGA Tour, I think it’s been on their hard card for a loooooong time.
FWIW, Brad Fabel certainly seemed like he was wondering what the hell was going on there when he got there and the ball was already sitting to the side.
And yet they said Patrick handled everything just fine.
I'm not a fan of hypotheticals, but I wonder what would have happened if the TV guys got word to Fabel that the ball did in fact bounce.
Did you miss the part on the first page (IIRC) where JVB pointed out that a bounced ball could embed and relief would be granted?