Sergio García might have become a lightning rod for criticism long before he joined LIV Golf, but there was something unmistakably reassuring, even heartwarming, about his stubborn refusal to miss a first Open since 1997 without so much as a fight. There he was at West Lancashire Golf Club at 7.20am on Tuesday, teeing off in front of almost 200 people as he began his 36-hole final qualifier.
“I respect the game too much for that. As we say in Spain, the rings won’t fall off my fingers,” he says and, after all the bickering and bad blood, it was a day that reminded of what always made García great, an enthusiasm burnt deep into the soul, even after his hopes of a return to Hoylake evaporated.
“All I can do is keep putting myself out there,” he says, with LIV’s lack of ranking points abetting García’s fall to 219th in the world. “And next year I’ll try again, for sure.”
Back at the Centurion Club in Hemel Hempstead, García is received with a different kind of largesse. The 43-year-old is in a magnanimous mood — even if golf’s unlikely merger left an opportunity to gloat. Few players have been embroiled in greater controversy since LIV’s inaugural event here a year ago, with a locker-room rant in Munich, an abrupt departure from Wentworth, and a bitter fallout with Rory McIlroy forming an exhausting saga. That’s not even to mention García’s resignation from the DP World Tour, his outstanding fines, nor his exile from the Ryder Cup team he so often illuminated either.
Pride prevents from García detailing any regrets, but his recent efforts at reconciliation can be taken as a sign of his desire to draw a line under the last 12 months. “I love my friends and I don’t want to lose many,” he says, referring to his recent phone call with McIlroy in which the pair “cleared the air” after a period of radio silence.
Advertisement
“It was very important to me and, I think, for Rory too. It felt like there was this little hole left and we were both a bit sorry for everything that happened. I’m very happy with where we’re headed now and the relationships we are getting back. I just wish it hadn’t taken so long to get here.”
It might not prove as easy for others to wipe the slate clean, but García’s odd bouts of petulance have always been inextricable from his talent. That much has been obvious ever since he scissor-kicked his way down the 16th fairway at Medinah in 1999, an exuberant teenager undaunted by Tiger Woods, and remained as precarious two decades later when he thrashed furiously at a bunker in Saudi Arabia. “Sometimes you lose control because you want it so badly,” he says. “If you were a robot, people wouldn’t like or connect with you.”
If the limits of that leniency have been tested of late, it is not so much due to Garcia’s decision to join LIV for a reported $50 million (about £39 million) last summer, and he points to the advice of his friend and compatriot Jon Rahm when corroborating that. “I spoke to him many times and he said ‘Sergio, you’ve played for 25 years, you’ve given more than half your life to both Tours, and you’re in a position to do what’s best for you. Who am I to judge? You’re not hurting anyone.’”
It is the final part of that statement, however, that might be disputed among those at the DP World Tour. In his final appearance before joining LIV last summer, García flew into a fit of rage at the BMW International Open, telling fellow players they were all “f***ed” and playing the “fifth-ranked tour in the world”. García insists he doesn’t recall using those exact words, but he does concede there was a heated conversation.
“I obviously did talk to some of the players and I said ‘You’ve got to be careful because I don’t think the Tour is going in the right direction’,” he says. “They had the possibility to do [a deal with LIV] and unfortunately they took a different path and it did feel like they were kind of giving up on their fight against the PGA Tour. It was a very emotional week for me. I felt like it might be my last European tour event because of the way things were going, and I was very sad and upset.”
Advertisement
García’s final event instead came a few months later at Wentworth in September, where the animosity peaked and Keith Pelley, the DP World Tour chief executive, singled out García’s comments for criticism. After play was postponed on the Friday due to the Queen’s death, García, who stood little chance of making the cut, flew home to Arizona without offering an explanation.
“I talked about that week with Rory,” García says. “It was very uncomfortable and I wasn’t in the right mood to play. My head wasn’t in it. After what happened on Tuesday and Wednesday, I just didn’t want to be there. I always wanted to support the European tour, it’s where I started my career, but I just didn’t feel like they wanted that anymore.”
García insists he still hopes to “sit down and come to an agreement” with the DP World Tour, though it’s difficult to foresee an amicable resolution while he still refuses to pay the £100,000 fine ordered by a Sports Resolution arbitration panel in April. He will remain an icon in exile, with 36 victories as a professional establishing him among the greats of a generation, while his long-awaited victory at the Masters in 2017 honoured the legacies of his idols, Seve Ballesteros and José María Olazábal. “I always gave it everything I had. I still am,” García says. “I would’ve obviously loved to win a few more majors, but I’m proud of what I’ve done.”
Those accomplishments stand tallest at the Ryder Cup, and García’s record of 28.5 points should remain intact long after he retires. He is adamant that he can extend it further, and although some cast doubt on his recent form, García’s prolific partnership with Rahm in 2021 brought a rare streak of blue joy to Whistling Straits. “Without a doubt, I still want to play in the Ryder Cup,” he says. “My game is still in pretty good shape, but I feel I can bring more than just that. I get along well with pretty much all of the guys, even before the merger, so I don’t see why it would be a problem. I’d be the same guy that was there two years ago, that wouldn’t change.”
For all his success and occasional shortcomings, García rarely has changed. The golf world has been upended and yet he remains much the same, experienced but no less impassioned, a father but running on a childlike flame. It has been fractious and fantastic but nothing drew those halves together like the Ryder Cup.
Advertisement
Perhaps, for all the burnt bridges, it might do again. “The thing I’ve always loved most about the Ryder Cup is the relationships you build with your team-mates,” García says. “Rory was one, Luke [Donald, Europe’s captain] was one, there are so many and, like I said, after the last few weeks, I think we’re now all in a much better place.”
