Freedom, finally and forever
Did anyone else sit through Masters Sunday waiting for Sergio Garcia to do, you know, a Sergio Garcia? He’d taken us on this emotional rollercoaster so many times before, the old get into contention, get in front, get twitchy, get the tissues out trick with the decidedly unfunny punch line.
With his proven pedigree in the bigs and those Deidre Barlow-sized shades to hide any hint of nerves, the smart money was on former U.S. Open champion Justin Rose at Augusta National. Indeed, history suggested the only real surprise was to be which of the proven nearly-men, Garica or Rickie Fowler, would fade first down the stretch.
At 0-73 in major championships beforehand, even El Niño seemed to have long since checked out. “I’m not good enough. I don’t have the thing I need to have,” Garcia famously sulked at the 2012 Masters. It was a dark self-assessment from a player whose ball striking remained so bright.
Garcia has been a uncomfortably compelling watch in the majors ever since he scissor kicked his way up that fairway and into our living rooms during an epic U.S. PGA Championship duel with Tiger Woods in 1999. As Golf Digest’s Jamie Diaz has so eloquently summarised, the now 37-yearold Spaniard has been getting in his own way ever since as the not-quites and might-have-beens – four times a runner-up, 12 top-5s and 22 top 10s - began stacking up.
“Few players are perfect mentally, but Garcia as a golfer was seriously flawed,” Diaz writes in our Masters review from p46. “Over nearly two decades, he trafficked in all manner of negativity: excuse making, whining, blaming and defeatism. All while stubbornly refusing to see how he was sabotaging his extraordinary ability.”
Angela Akins, whom Garica will wed in July, has been credited with saving Sergio from himself and a major-less, Monty-type fate. The former Golf Channel reporter sat through a cringe-worthy Desert Classic media conference in February where her man was grilled on his desire given that Masters monologue in 2012 and the impending nuptials, as if marriage is somehow kryptonite to winning. A cool three-stroke victory over the Iceman, Henrik Stenson, was an emphatic retort. Still, his route to the Green Jacket was never going to be straightforward.
Rose contributed so much to their duel – the Englishman was a classy antithesis to how the Garcia of a now seemingly bygone era has handled similar major heartache. Just ask Padraig Harrington who labeled Garcia a “sore loser” after beating him in a playoff for the 2007 Open at Carnoustie.
You do wonder how Garcia could ever have recovered from another playoff defeat given the guilt-edged four-footer he had for the Green Jacket on the 72nd hole, a putt that started right, stayed right and had a patron in the background, arms out turned in utter disbelief, wondering how Garcia had got his big chance so horribly wrong.
Fortunately Garica was able to keep the demons bottled. With the late, great Seve Ballesteros smiling down from above on what would have been his 60th birthday, Sergio took one putt where he had two for the title and was finally and forever free. Augusta rarely fails to deliver but Garcia’s battle with himself, as much as with Rose, made this one for the ages. Now unleashed from the burden of expectation, there will be a new legion of fans willing Garcia to do, well, you know, a Garcia in many more majors to come.