They say that pressure can make diamonds, but it can also burst pipes.
It seemed for a moment that Sergio Garcia was finally going to shine by besting Tiger Woods head to head for a meaningful title. In the end, Woods added another jewel to his already crowded crown and Garcia needed a good plumber.
On No. 17 at Sawgrass on Sunday, Garcia’s round dissolved like a couple of Alka-Seltzer, only this case the “plop, plop, fizz, fizz” started a headache instead of relieving one. Garcia’s mind-bending quadruple-bogey, double-bogey finish at The Players Championship last weekend will certainly be remembered as long as he plays golf. The question now is whether it will define his career.
While his talent has never been questioned, Sergio has been circling true greatness like a guy trying to get in a nightclub when he knows his name isn’t on the invite list. When he burst on the scene at the 1999 PGA Championship, he seemed to have the perfect combination of ability and a joyful spirit of competition to be a foil for Woods, who was already casting a Darth Vader-like shadow over the game.
And Garcia has had a noteworthy career, with wins all over the world, a distinguished match play record and more money than he can count. But it still seems that Garcia’s talent is a check that never really got cashed. He has only eight PGA Tour wins, and aside from the The Players Championship in 2008 there isn’t a significant win on his record that doesn’t have “Cup” in the name.
But this loss is different than the others, because Sergio is no longer a child prodigy. Sergio is 33, the time when most golfers should be in the prime of their careers, but he seems older. The joy we saw from a younger Sergio seems to have been replaced by a surliness and a tendency to blame the gods for his missteps and shortcomings.
Garcia is all about “almost” and “what if,” and the list continues to grow: The 2007 British Open where he lipped out too many putts. The 2008 PGA Championship at Oakland Hills where he rinsed a ball on the 70th hole to take himself out of contention. And now this.
Each time Garcia has been knocked down, he bounced back, but each time just a little lower. There is psychic scar tissue that will restrict his ability to perform in similar situations in the future. The petty fight that Garcia picked with Woods over a crowd disturbance seemed more like Garcia trying to wave a little smelling salts under his own nose rather than a legitimate complaint. But it also was Garcia reaffirming his perpetual victimhood, something that the greats of the game have never had any time for.
Going forward, Garcia will not only have to fight his inner demons. There will be some very external, very vocal fans ready to chide and berate the one thing that American fans hate most, a whiner.
Colin Montgomerie was just elected to the Hall of Fame, but Monty went O-for-America, never managing to win on the PGA Tour once in the face of the constant teasing from the normally restrained PGA Tour galleries. Garcia has now put himself in the role of being the King of All Mopes. It proved to be too much for Monty; it will likely prove to be too much for Garcia to win a major championship on American soil.
Tiger Woods once said that he loves performing under pressure, despite the fact that it “feels like a lion tearing at my heart.” That Woods seeks the lion and defeats it time after time is a testament to where he belongs in the golf pantheon.
Garcia has also seen the lion, and in those instances when he had a team with him he has known success. But when he has to face the beast alone he seems to seek a way out more than a way to win.
It doesn’t make him a bad guy; in fact it makes him like the rest of us. But you know what, we need Sergio Garcia. He is a measuring stick, a point of perspective that tells us the difference between good and great.