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Sitting alone on the stage before a roomful of journalists, the press officer for the R&A taps his fingers on the table, fidgeting like a nervous student waiting for the principal. His unenviable task: hosting the loser's press conference at the 2007 British Open. Sergio Garcia walks in, head bowed, jaw clenched. In the last few hours, he has lost his three-shot lead, bogeyed the 72nd hole when par would have won the Claret Jug, and fallen to Padraig Harrington in a play-off. He is irritable.
"I know you're bitterly disappointed," the British fellow stutters. Garcia looks up. "No, I'm thrilled," he says. "Happiest man alive." He then wallows in a soliloquy of self-pity. He blames his loss mostly on bad luck ("I should write a book on how to not miss a shot in the playoff and shoot 1-over") and a sluggish greens crew that delayed his approach to 18 ("Seemed to take a long time to rake two bunkers.")
Fast-forward six months to January's Dubai Desert Classic. Garcia has agreed to discuss Carnoustie, and his petulant comments, for the first time since the Open. He answers his hotel-suite door wearing a T-shirt and red-and-yellow shorts (the colors of the Spanish flag). He takes a seat on a sofa and returns to playing soccer on his PlayStation. There's a long, awkward silence as his thumbs tap away on the keypad. It's as if he doesn't want the conversation to begin.
So Sergio, about Carnoustie...
"I don't regret anything," he says, clicking away. "I have always been this way: honest and wearing my heart on my sleeve. Probably too much. There are people who love me and people who hate me. I'm not going to change. Some people love it when you are not doing well. But you can't be loved by everyone. Sometimes I can control myself. Sometimes I can't. You only hear about it when I can't control myself."
Fair enough. If we're going to criticize Garcia for fire-breathing press conferences or giving a fan the finger at the 2002 U.S. Open or spitting into the cup after missing a par putt at the 2007 WGC-CA Championship, we should acknowledge that he's a superstar who's often approachable, sociable, and generous. That he signs autographs until his wrist stiffens, and gives countless balls and gloves to kids. "I am a role model, and that's not easy to live with," Garcia said in 2002. "There is a bit of Seve in me. I have to fight to control my emotions."
He's still fighting. And still searching.
It was Garcia's exuberant flashes of emotion that thrust him into the spotlight in 1999. Remember that hop, skip and jump after his impossible shot against an oak tree at Medinah at the PGA Championship? The media and fans loved him then. Here was a human rival for the robotic Tiger Woods. He was Seve 2.0. He swaggered, cried, smiled, waved, laughed, entertained. Sergio and Tiger were about to forge golf's next great rivalry. But almost winning at Medinah was, perhaps, the worst thing that could have happened to Garcia at 19. "He came out like Tiger, and it looked so easy," says his former Ryder Cup teammate and partner Jesper Parnevik. "But in his mind he hasn't lived up to expectations."
The expectations — and the endless din of "When will you win a major?" — have worn on the Spaniard. Sergio, 28, has 17 worldwide wins and has played 38 majors, with 13 top 10s — but no victories. Carnoustie, and that 12-foot lip-out, was his best major chance to date.
"I still see that putt in my head every once in a while," says Garcia, pausing his PlayStation. "That Sunday night, I didn't cry. But I could feel that my body was heavy. I walked around the beach at home [in Spain] for a couple of days to clear my head. Sometimes I definitely feel I am an unlucky golfer. But you can't live your life thinking, 'If only.'"
Garcia is convinced the answers lie within. Unlike the previous Best Player Without a Major, Phil Mickelson — who changed his gamblin' ways — we won't soon see Sergio: Extreme Major Makeover. "What is clear in my mind is I am not going to change my whole life to win a major," Garcia says. "It is not worth it. I love my life. Nobody is telling me that, if I change, I am going to win 10 majors. I would rather win 30, 40 or 50 tournaments and no majors than win one major and that's it. Just winning one tournament, even if it's a major, doesn't prove to me that you've had a successful career. If you can tell me that if I put my hand in the fire and not get burned, and I will win, then maybe. But nobody has that kind of will. Except maybe Tiger."
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