I know Sergio Garcia.
Well, OK maybe not really. I don’t literally know Sergio Garcia, as I am Canadian and work in an office and he is Spanish and plays on the PGA Tour, but humor me for a second. I know what it feels like to be Sergio, at least Sergio minus the millions of dollars, which is probably not as significant a difference as we assume.
I know what it feels like to not achieve what you thought you’d achieve, to feel like you missed out on things, to go through tough moments in your life and have it affect how you act. I know what it feels like to do or say something stupid in the heat of the moment and instantly regret it. Yes, I may not have millions of dollars to comfort me but I also don’t have millions of people criticizing me or taking pleasure in my failures either. I understand, or at least try to understand, Sergio.
I watch him and can’t help but feel how close he has come to being something completely different, to being the champion we all thought he’d be when he skipped up the fairway at Medinah, to being the overall athlete we crave as fans, who wins and then tells us how they really feel about it, or about everything really. Only it hasn’t happened yet, and with each passing year I wonder if it will ever happen. I also wonder what it would change if it did, if a major title would transform him from the guy into the humble, honest superstar I believe he is. I guess the difference with me is I’m not willing to wait; I cheer for him now. And so should you.
To understand Sergio now, you have to go back to the beginning. In simple physics terms, no one can fall this far without starting so high, and that is true in his case. Sergio had a ton of promise. As a junior, he set a record as the youngest player ever to make the cut in a European Tour event (since broken), he turned pro after being the low amateur at the 1999 Masters, and then won his first pro tournament in only his sixth start at the 1999 Irish Open. Of course that was only wetting our appetite for his epic duel with Tiger Woods at the 1999 PGA Championship at Medinah, a tournament that has become a staple of Golf Channel classics, and which featured one of the greatest shots ever hit in major championship golf. Sports Illustrated wrote an article about Woods’ win that August, in which it said Tiger and Sergio had the star quality of Newman and Redford, and that the weekend launched a rivalry that would take golf into a new era.
Garcia couldn’t be praised enough, whether it was for his “mischievous glare” he gave Tiger on No. 13, or for his delightful scissor kick down the No. 16 fairway. He was the swashbuckling Spaniard on what he would afterwards call “the best day of my life.” He was only 19 years old and already a superstar, and already having picked up his first second-place finish in a major, a stat that would come to define him
It seems like a long time ago that Sergio was known for his exuberance. Sergio gave a great interview after Medinah, about his glare, about his desire to play Tiger in that year’s Ryder cup. He did humerus ads for Michelob beer where he spoofed James Bond, or caroused with women next to pools. He wasn’t a traditional superstar, he was honest and refreshing. This was not a guy who answered questions with “It is what it is.” This was a guy who really let you know how he felt. We appreciated that when things were going well. We like our pros to be honest when things are going well.
Things stopped being perfect in 2002, probably the first time Sergio faced real backlash. By then he had won eight global tournaments and had certainly not been too much of a disappointment, but he arrived at Bethpage Black with no majors and a bit of a nasty habit of re-gripping the club. In perhaps a bit of irony, we praised New Yorkers for being tough but crushed Sergio for responding with a middle finger salute to the gallery when fans heckled him. Should we have congratulated Sergio for flipping the bird to a group of wiseguy New Yorkers who were counting Sergio’s regrips? No, I suppose not.
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Garcia playing at Bethpage Black in the 2012 at The Barclays.
But why was he targeted? Sergio spent most of Sunday in contention and ended up finishing fourth. This was the same guy who three years earlier had thrilled us trying to chase down Tiger at Medinah, and here he was again trying to chase down the same man in the Big Apple. Had fans turned on him for re-gripping his club? For responding with a rude gesture to fans calling him “waggle boy” and who were also apparently taking potshots at his then-girlfriend Martina Hingis?
Garcia probably didn’t help his case by also suggesting that the Saturday conditions favored Woods and the tournament likely would have postponed play if their tee times had been reversed. Yet, it certainly wasn’t the first time Tiger had been accused of getting breaks, but it wasn’t usually from players. It’s OK for fans to say it, but not for Garcia. In any regard, Garcia apologized and even left a personalized note in Woods’ locker regarding his comments. Is this really that unforgivable? To respond to rude gestures with rude gestures of your own? To complain that co-workers have benefited from more favorable circumstances? Nevertheless, Bethpage 2002 is still not regarded as Sergio’s finest hour.
His reputation somewhat tarnished, Sergio went on to win five more tournaments in the next five years. He now had 16 global victories while still in only his mid 20s, but majors still eluded him. Between 2002 and 2007, Garcia would reach the pinnacle of what I’ll call the dreaded “Phil Mickelson Status” of being the unanimous best player without a major. In that span, he had 11 top 10s in majors including multiple top 10s in every individual major event. His name popped up on leaderboards like a whack-a-mole. But with Mickelson winning the Masters in 2004 (Garcia finished T4 that year), the press had a new target to torment. His spitting incident in March 2007 gave the media an opportunity to pile up on Sergio anew about his attitude and his failure to play up to our expectations.
It’s tough to defend a man spitting in the cup, which Sergio did at Doral in 2007, but the act and its aftermath was vintage Garcia. He fessed up to it immediately, and then awkwardly (and somewhat comically) described to Jimmy Roberts how the spit went in the middle of the cup, fell through and posed no immediate threat to ensuing golfers. He then chided a reporter the following day for questioning him on it again, asking him if he was “disappointed he didn’t do it again today.” But blood was in the water again, and several publications used the incident to talk about how disappointing his career had been, how childish he could act, and how he just wasn’t a winner on par with Tiger Woods, like we expected him to be in 1999. It’s hard to imagine this not bothering someone, not weighing on him every time he stepped out on the course, especially someone we knew to be fairly emotional. Phil Mickelson would later admit winning a major was important to him all along, certainly it must have been for Sergio as well.
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Garcia at the PGA Championship in 2008, where he finished second to Padraig Harrington.
The 2007 Open Championship and 2008 PGA Championship were probably the straws that broke the camel’s back so to speak. Even after coming so close before, these were major tournaments that Sergio really should have won. He led both in the final round, and in 2007 in particular, looked dominant the first three rounds while building up a big lead. Even despite giving it up on the final day, he still had a makeable putt for the win, and to this day every time I watch that putt it still looks like it’s going in.
At the 2008 PGA Championship, he battled hard again with Padraig Harrington on Sunday at Oakland Hills before a shot into the water at No. 16 helped seal yet another second-place finish. Coming so close and still failing after so many years of pressure, to be one or two shots away from finally having people stop wondering about his mental fortitude, about whether he was capable of winning a major, seemed to send Sergio into a tailspin. Well, arguably that and his much publicized breakup with Greg Norman’s daughter, Morgan. Garcia would fall all the way down the rankings to No. 78, after being as high as second only a year earlier. He would miss the Ryder Cup for the first time in his career in 2010, a year in which he struggled with his emotions (arguably reaching that apex when he broke down into tears during the Madrid Masters) and simply in the end deciding to take time off golf.
As you would expect by now, Sergio dealt with this as he often did, with brutal honesty. He would give interviews where he became one of the only pro athletes I can remember openly talking about how hurt feelings over a relationship contributed to his poor play. He laid it all out there over and over to any reporter who wanted to ask. He routinely talked about not being happy on the course and how that affected his play. He talked about his breakup with Morgan Norman. Say what you want about that man, but again he never answers anything with “It is what it is.”
Fast forward to 2012, and Sergio has been back for two years. He has won two more events bringing his professional wins total to 24, including 18 on the PGA and European Tours. There is no one younger than him on either pro tour that has more wins then his eight (Tour) and 10 (Euro). It feels like it’s been a long ride to get here, but Sergio is only 33, and despite his past, he said he had no regrets.
Garcia did a gem of an interview with David Feherty in 2012 for the Golf Channel, saying essentially that, but also admitting that maybe he’d be better off if there was a bit of a break between the on-course action and having to give interviews. He seems pretty aware that he said dumb things in the heat of the moment, and hinted to realizing later how foolish he could look to saying some things. He also said that he tried to remember that he was just a golfer, just a guy with a gift of talent but who was no better nor different than the average fan.
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Garcia at the 2012 Ryder Cup with Rory McIlroy.
“I think if we all thought like this the world would be a better place,” he said to David Feherty.
I took from his comments to mean that it’s really important for him to just be a good guy.
So I try to think of Sergio as a regular guy, like myself. Maybe we all should. Maybe an honest and open guy is always going to struggle in the spotlight but is that such a bad thing? Why do some people enjoy rooting against someone who time and time again is accountable, who lays it out there and is vulnerable? How can we condemn someone for saying things in the heat of the moment when we all do that? Who among us has never thrown a club, spoke ill of a coworker, responded to bullying with an obscene gesture or comment? Let them cast the first stone, but I will not do it.
When I look at Garcia, I see a guy who is fallible, out on Tour struggling to become what we expect him to be. I see fans criticizing the guy because he doesn’t fit their view of what they think they’d be like in his place. Maybe instead of spoofing James Bond in a commercial, he should’ve impersonated Superman, capable of performing acts we can’t fathom on the golf course, but unable to shake being the mortal Clark Kent off it. I for one like that about Garcia, and hope others will start appreciating it too, because there aren’t many who let us see that side to them.
And that brings us back to where we are. Sergio Garcia at 33 with the Masters around the corner. He sits locked at those 18 major Tour wins and 17 top 10s in majors, facing the downswing of his career which may culminate in him being labelled a whining disappointment.
There is still hope for Garcia. Just a little under a decade ago, Mickelson entered April 2004 in virtually the same position.
“Phil the Thrill” came into that Masters with 22 Tour wins and 16 top 10s in majors at the age 33. He had a lot of the same demons and a similar volume of detractors. That must seem like a long time ago for Phil.
What then, will we say about Garcia in 2023? Will he win his majors? If so what will fans make of it? Will winning make his human side more tolerable or more heavily scrutinized? I can hardly imagine Garcia himself will change, knowing what we do. And that is what makes the coming years fascinating for me. He won’t change, but will him winning change fans?
As we’ve learned already with Garcia, anything is possible. And I will be rooting for him all the way, because I believe sometimes the good guys should finish first.