Garcia’s journey from ‘El Niño’ to established veteran

May. 5, 2009
By Lewine Mair, Special to PGATOUR.COM

No one should be fooled by what Sergio Garcia said in the wake of his win at last year’s THE PLAYERS Championship. Though he insisted, “I definitely don’t consider myself a kid anymore,” the kid in Garcia remains not too far below the surface and always will. It is what makes him the player that he is.

Often, Spanish golfers are at the other end of the spectrum to those who keep their feelings securely under wraps. First came Seve Ballesteros, whose face always told every bit as much about his latest shot as the flight of the ball. Then there was Jose Maria Olazabal, who broke into that never-to-be-forgotten jig at the end of the 1987 Ryder Cup at Muirfield Village.

“In Spain,” explains Garcia, who started swinging with a broomstick at age 2 and was the proud owner of some cut-down clubs at 3, “we play golf with our hearts. I cannot tell you whether that is because of our culture or whether it is because we have discovered how we play best. Others don’t show as much excitement as we do or, alternatively, they don’t want to show it.”

The more precociously gifted are often apt to have a hard time of it from their fellow men. Garcia, who made 21 cuts in the 28 professional tournaments he played while still an amateur, was no exception. He made the cut at a European Tour event at age 14 and captured the Catalonian Open, his first professional title, as a 17-year-old amateur. But where Tiger Woods had Mark O’Meara batting for him from the start, Garcia had Ernie Els.

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