Garcia is back in the groove and will show he’s one of best: Bjorn

EUROPEAN captain Thomas Bjorn believes his pep talks with Sergio Garcia have had the desired effect ahead of this week’s Ryder Cup.

Garcia was a controversial choice for a wild card after a poor run of form, the 2017 Masters champion missing the cut in his last five major starts and failing to qualify for the FedEx Cup play-offs on the PGA Tour.

The 38-year-old did finish eighth in the French Open at the Ryder Cup venue of Le Golf National, but that had been his only top-10 finish since early March before a closing 65 on Sunday gave the experienced Spaniard a tie for seventh in the Portugal Masters.

“I was pleased for Sergio,” Bjorn (right) said. “I think he felt more than I did that he wanted to get out there and shoot some good numbers and feel good about himself on the golf course.

“I know what Sergio stands for and I know what he brings to this team and I’ve said it all along — he’s an integral part of what we are and who we are.

“He came in here in good spirits and with a big smile on his face and that’s what he will send on to his team-mates.

“Sergio is the type of guy that sometimes needs that little boost of feeling like things are going his way. I think the conversations I had with him leading into picking him, and I’ve had after, makes him feel like he’s in a good place and his golf is moving in the right direction.

“I know the values of him as a person and now he wants to get out on the golf course and show what he’s capable of. We all know that Sergio at his best, he’s one of the best golfers in the world.

“He’s in a good place. He’s got a big smile on his face and he just can’t wait to get out there, and like all of them on this team, they are really buzzing about this Ryder Cup coming up and they want to get out and play golf.”

Bjorn refused to be drawn on whether all 12 of his team would play on the opening day, but revealed he had a strong idea of what he wanted his initial pairings to be.

“I think you prepare yourself 80, 90% and then you know there’s a few little bits that can move as the week progresses,” the 47-year-old Dane said. “There’s a lot of things that can happen with the players and to the players in a week like this.

“In your mind you’re very set on where you want to go with it, and something uncharacteristic has to happen if you’re going to change it, but you’re pretty much set in your mind where it’s all going to go.”

Bjorn also said that although he had consulted respected sports figures for advice, he had no plans to follow in the footsteps of predecessors Paul McGinley and Darren Clarke, who brought Sir Alex Ferguson and Paul O’Connell in respectively to speak to the players beforehand.

“You might ask a couple of people what they think about different things, but I’m happy with where I am as a captain and how I can lead these 12 players,” he said.” THE man himself will tell you it is not even the greatest comeback in golf, let alone sport as a whole, citing instead Ben Hogan’s recovery from a near-fatal car crash.

But whether Tiger Woods returning to the winners’ circle after five years, four back operations and one DUI arrest is the greatest comeback, second greatest or not even in the top 10 simply could not matter less.

All that does matter is that Woods is back where he belongs among the world’s elite and can focus now on achieving a feat that will see him automatically ranked as the greatest of all time, namely surpassing the 18 major titles won by Jack Nicklaus.

In a last-ditch bid to save a career blighted by admissions of sex addiction leading to a marital break-up, Woods underwent spinal fusion surgery in April last year and was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence the following month when he was found asleep at the wheel of his car.

The 42-year-old, who had five prescription drugs in his system, later pleaded guilty to reckless driving, underwent a diversion programme and spent 11 months on probation, returning to competitive golf at the end of November by admitting he was “winging it” as he waited to see if his fused back would hold up.

“I’ve been in bed for about two years and haven’t been able to do much,” Woods revealed ahead of the Hero World Challenge, where he would finish ninth in the 18-man field.

Back on the PGA Tour in 2018, Woods missed the cut in his second event but crucially felt fit enough to add tournaments to his schedule and the results soon followed, most notably when he led the Open Championship with eight holes to play and then finished runner-up in the USPGA.

In that sense his victory in the Tour Championship came as no surprise, but for anyone who had watched Woods become a shadow of his former self in recent years, surprise — or even amazement — would be a completely understandable reaction.

After winning five times in 2013, Woods had started just TIGER Woods has admitted fearing he would never win another golf tournament due to his chronic back injuries.

Woods claimed the Tour Championship on Sunday for his first tournament win since August 2013, and his 80th PGA Tour title.

The 42-year-old languished as low as 1,199 in golf ’s world rankings less than a year ago following spinal fusion surgery, but 24 events in the next four years as the pain from his back often left him grimacing in pain or forced to withdraw from events entirely.

This was seen most recently after an opening 77 in Dubai in February 2017, where he struggled to climb out of a bunker.

So if his millions of fans want to label it the greatest comeback they have plenty of ammunition, but as a historian of the game Woods knows all about what Ben Hogan had to overcome to simply walk again, completed a remarkable comeback in Atlanta at the weekend.

The 14-time major champion warmed up for this weekend’s Ryder Cup in style, before conceding his injury woes had him worried he may never mount a credible return to the sport’s summit.

“It means a lot more to me now in the sense because I didn’t know if I’d ever be out here again playing — doing this again,” said Woods.

“I don’t know, 20 years ago, I thought I was going to play for another 30 years. That’s just the way golf is. You can play until you’re 70-years-old. You see these guys on the Champions Tour playing tournament golf at 70.

“Then there was a point in time I didn’t know if I’d ever do this again.

“I appreciate it a little bit more than I did because I don’t take it for granted that I’m going to have another decade, two decades in my future of playing golf at this level.”

Justin Rose pipped Woods to the overall FedEx Cup title, with the two men gearing up to face off when the Ryder Cup starts in Paris on Friday.

Woods underwent his third let alone return to golf and win six of his nine major titles, including all three he could contest in 1953.

Hogan and his wife Valerie survived a head-on collision with a Greyhound bus in February 1949, an accident which left the 36-year-old Hogan in hospital for two months with a double fracture of the pelvis, a fractured collar bone, a left ankle fracture, a chipped rib, and near-fatal blood clots.

“As far as greatest comebacks, I think that one of the surgery in 19 months in April 2017 in a bid to cure pain in his back and leg, at that point fearing he may never be able to play golf again.

Asked whether the reaction to his victory might break the internet, Woods chose to poke fun at both his age and longevity.

“Well, when I came out here, there was no internet,” joked Woods, in a nod to a career that kick-started with his 1997 US Masters triumph.

Woods added: “Probably the low point was not knowing if I’d ever be able to live pain-free again; am I going to be able to