As to be expected, much of the attention has been focused on Tiger Woods this year in the lead up to the first major of the year. Even the top young guns – Dustin Johnson, Jordan Spieth, Justin Thomas, Jon Rahm, Jason Day and Rory McIlroy – have taken something of a backseat as the eternal question dominates media coverage: can Woods add to his 14 Grand Slam titles and once again threaten Jack Nicklaus’s record of 18.
Another top-10 star who would also – under normal circumstance – be featuring prominently on the front (or home) page is Sergio García, but as the 2018 U.S. Masters looms he has been quietly going about his business almost under the radar. And that in spite of having enjoyed the best 12 months of his career – and, arguably, life.
He won his first major championship last April, being fitted into the famous green jacket on what would have been two-time champion Seve Ballesteros’s 60th birthday, he married Golf Channel reporter Angela Akins in July, he won another title at his “favourite course in the world”, Valderrama, and (as we went to press) he had just welcomed their first child into the world, Azalea – with clear Augusta National connotations!
Along the way, in addition to his Andalucía Valderrama Masters title in October (his 14th European Tour victory), which helped propel him to fourth place in the final Race to Dubai rankings and resulted in him being named European Tour Golfer of the Year, he won an Asian Tour event, the Singapore Open, in January this year.
As he returns to the scene of his greatest triumph, his season has been inconsistent: after his Valderrama triumph and fourth in the end-of-season World Tour Championship in Dubai, he finished 19th, 24th and 32nd in his first three starts of the new European Tour season. Then, moving across the Atlantic after his Asian sojourn, he was 33rd in The Honda Classic, seventh in the WGC-Mexico Championship and fourth in the Valspar Championship (where, incidentally, TigerMania reached a crescendo with the American’s share of second place).
García’s streaky form in recent months is reflected in the betting odds for the Masters – he has been hovering around 30/1 and outside the top-10 favourites – and, until last year, he tended to have a love-hate relationship with Augusta. So, if he is to follow up this year with a second major, it is perhaps more likely to be in one of the other three.
Nevertheless, few would bet against García retaining his Masters title, or at least contending strongly, now that the dreaded monkey (as the best golfer not to have won a major) has been removed from his back and he is clearly in a happier place professionally and emotionally.
Having said that, García’s ambitions are probably mostly fulfilled, even if three key achievements have eluded him during an otherwise stellar career: finishing number one on the European and U.S. PGA Tours (his best finishes have been third in 1999 and 2008, respectively), and rising to number one in the world ranking – he was second in 2008.
After ending the anguish and winning his first major last year, the then 37-year-old Spaniard García joked, “I don’t know if I’ll be the best player to have only won one major. But I can live with that… “I have a beautiful life. Major or no major, I’ve said it many, many times. I have an amazing life.”
Back to Augusta as Reigning Champion
All the stars finally lined up for García at Augusta last year. He had earned a place in the 1999 Masters field as the reigning British Amateur champion and was the lowest-scoring amateur in that edition. García recalled walking away thinking he would one day win the championship and, as the rising star of his generation when he turned pro that same year, he was expected to challenge the likes of Tiger Woods for supremacy. He did fulfil expectations, to varying degrees, in other scenarios but not at Augusta.
Only twice in his first U.S. Masters 18 starts did he start the final round inside the top 10, then six years ago he told Spanish reporters it would never happen for him. Not only would he not win the Masters, he said he’d never win a major – that the golf gods were against him and bad luck was thwarting him.
He argued that his life would be no different, that crossing his name off the best-to-never-win-a-major list would not define his happiness. But few believed him. Along the way he had famously finished second behind Tiger Woods in the 1999 US PGA Championship at Medinah, and suffered the agony of three other runner-up places in majors: the 2007 British Open championship (when he lost to Padraig Harrington in a play-off) and 2014, and the 2008 US PGA Championship.
“When I came here in 1999 as an amateur, I felt like this course was probably going to give me at least one major,” he said before receiving the green jacket from 2016 winner Danny Willett. “I'm not going to lie, that thought kind of changed a little bit through the years, because I started feeling uncomfortable on the course. But I kind of came to peace with it the last three or four years, and I accepted what Augusta gives and takes. And I think because of that, I'm able to stand here today… Been a long time coming. It's been an amazing week, and I'm going to enjoy it for the rest of my life.”
On the Wednesday, Olazábal had sent García a message telling him how much he believed in his compatriot. “And what I needed to do. And just pretty much believe in myself.” He also mentioned he was not sharing his champion’s locker at Augusta National with anybody. “I hope that I get to do it with you,” Olazábal told García.
The other Spanish winner at Augusta, Seve Ballesteros, who died in 2011 of brain cancer, would have turned 60 on the Sunday of the 2017 Masters. García said he felt the presence of the two-time Masters winner (1980 and 1983) several times during the week. Clearly it had a calming influence, because García said he never felt so calm on a major Sunday.
“To do it on Seve’s 60th birthday and to join him and Olazábal, my two idols in golf my whole life, it's something amazing.”
No one had ever played more majors as a pro (70) before winning one for the first time. The demons have now been truly banished, and there is no reason for them to return as he settles into family life and returns his green jacket to the hallowed Augusta locker.
