Is Garcia a Ryder Cup certainty?
RYDER Cup captain Thomas Bjorn did not sound like a man thinking the unthinkable yesterday, namely going into next month’s match in paris without Sergio Garcia. point, though, given the Spaniard’s precipitous decline that sees him mired in the worst slump of his career in the majors, with four missed halfway cuts in a row.
‘It’s the greatest feeling in the world when you’re playing well at a Ryder Cup but I’ve been there when you’re struggling, and it’s a horrible experience,’ said the Dane.
Bjorn feels no need to wrestle with that dreaded scenario just yet regarding Garcia.
‘We know what it’s like with world-class players like Sergio. They have their ups and downs and it wouldn’t surprise me at all if he won the pGA — and was sitting here on Sunday holding the Wanamaker Trophy,’ he said.
It would startle just about everyone else at the 100th uS pGA at Bellerive, when you consider 38-year-old Garcia has not finished in the top 20 in a major since he won the Masters last year.
Garcia’s form in America this season has been so bad, he actually needs a decent finish in Missouri simply to make the top 125 who qualify for the FedEx Cup play-offs later this month (he’s currently 131st).
‘I’d like to see something from him in terms of form but as much for him as for me, because I know that would make him feel good about where he is,’ said Bjorn.
It would also remove the sort of wildcard dilemma every captain dreads. On the one hand, how do you leave out a Ryder Cup legend, a man who would become the all-time record points scorer if he claimed three points in paris — and whose best performance this summer just happened to come in the French Open on the Ryder Cup course last month?
Another potentially thorny problem for the skipper concerns his fellow countryman Thorbjorn Olesen, who has made a compelling case for a wildcard with his feisty play this summer. But how do you pick a close mate?
‘I’ve made it clear to him that he’s going to need to do something special to make this team and to preferably do it on merit,’ said Bjorn.
As for the pGA, practice was seriously curtailed yesterday owing to a series of thunderstorms that saturated an already long course, bringing a gleam to the eyes of the big hitters.
Tiger Woods got in five holes before calling it a day and offering an explanation for his poor form over the weekend at Firestone: He’s getting old.
‘I took yesterday off because I needed three ice baths to reduce some inflammation,’ he said.
‘There are going to be days when my speed isn’t there. It’s a fact of life when you’re 42 and have had four back surgeries.’