Garcia’s behaviour shows lack of respect: Koepka
CARY, North Carolina: Threetimes major champion Brooks Koepka has publicly rebuked Sergio Garcia for a temper tantrum at the European Tour’s Saudi International on Sunday, and says it is time for the Spaniard to ‘‘grow up’’.
Garcia was disqualified from the event after the third round for what the tour deemed ‘‘serious misconduct’’ under rule 1.2a.
‘‘I respect the decision of my disqualification. In frustration, I damaged a couple of greens, for which I apologise for, and I have informed my fellow players it will never happen again,’’ Garcia said in a statement released by the tour.
In addition, video surfaced on social media of Garcia slamming his club into the sand three times after a mediocre bunker shot, and angrily speaking in Spanish as he departed the trap.
‘‘That’s just Sergio acting like a child,’’ Koepka said in interview with the Playing Through podcast yesterday.
‘‘It’s unfortunate that he’s got to do that and complain. Everybody’s got to play the same golf course. I didn’t play very good, but you didn’t really see anybody else doing that.
‘‘I mean, you’re 40 years old, so you’ve got to grow up eventually.’’ Garcia is 39.
Koepka finished equal57th in the inaugural event won by fellow American Dustin Johnson.
The tournament, at the Royal Greens Golf and Country Club in King Abdullah Economic City, attracted a starstudded field, including four of the world’s five topranked players.
Garcia, the 2017 Masters champion, seemed to have mellowed after finally tasting major success, getting married and becoming a father, all within 12 months.
Koepka, the reigning U.S. Open and PGA champion, did not play with Garcia, and learned about the behaviour of his peer only afterwards.
‘‘It’s frustrating as a player to see. To act like that, the disrespect to everybody, to act like a child out there is not cool,’’ Koepka said.
‘‘It’s not setting a good example and it’s not cool to us, showing us no respect.’’
A Major winner Geoff Ogilvy says the Vic Open is now a much bigger tournament than the men’s Australian Open in just about every measure.
The longtime US PGA Tour player has scaled back his schedule for family reasons, giving him the perfect opportunity to play the Vic Open for the first time since it moved to the unique format of staging the the men’s and women’s tournaments concurrently at the same venue.
Total prize money has increased 10fold in seven years to $A3 million [$NZ3.13 million] — shared equally between the men and the women.
It dwarfs the $A1.25 million on offer for last year’s men’s Australian Open at The Lakes.
‘‘This is a bigger tournament than the Australian Open right now by a long way; maybe not in prestige, but in every other factor, every other measure,’’ Ogilvy said yesterday. The 2006 US Open winner says there was no reason why the same dualtournament format could not be taken up by Golf Australia to boost the national Open.
Australians Jason Scrivener, Lucas Herbert and New Zealand’s Ryan Fox are the early favourites to lift the 2019 Vic Open trophy in a field which also includes England’s Andrew Johnston and Japan’s Ryo Ishikawa. — Reuters/AAP