Sergio Garcia heads into a 25th anniversary of his Low Amateur award at the 1999 Masters suggesting it’s the media who like to continue stirring the political pot in men’s professional golf.
Garcia was aged just 19 when he joined newly-crowned Masters champion Jose Maria Olazabal in a then Spainish one-two on the Augusta National presentation green.
Then in 2017, Garcia overcame England’s Justin Rose in a play-off to join Olazabal as a fellow Masters champion.
However, as Garcia tees-up also in a 25th Masters having missed the 2020 Masters, and also as one of 13 LIV golfers taking to Augusta National, he was quizzed on his thoughts as to the present climate in the men’s game.
Sergio Garcia heading into a 25th Masters – Image Augusta National
“I think the game is in a perfect spot,” he replied. “The professional game, maybe it’s a little more separated, mostly because of the media, not so much because of the players. But I think the game itself is in a great spot
“Saying that we have the most amount of people playing the game, which is great, and people have to realize one thing, that the future of the game isn’t us.
“We’re not the future of the game. Neither me or Rory (McIlroy), no. We’re not the future. We’re the present of the game.
“But the future of the game is those kids that are watching us play, that want to get into the game, that want to play and then maybe become professionals. I think that’s what sometimes people forget.”
Though when asked what would a healing of the broken bridges in men’s golf provide Garcia said: “Obviously the more togetherness that you get, the better it is for everyone. There’s no doubt about that. But there’s room for everyone. I don’t think that’s a problem at all.
“The same way that I love watching Real Madrid and La Liga, you like to watch the premiership and whoever your team is. Everybody can support whoever they have, and there’s plenty of people to support it.
“But then you guys (media) love these things. You keep building up these things, and there’s nothing. There’s nothing
“You guys love to kind of dig and just kind of try to make it sound like we get in the locker room and we’re fighting each other and stuff like that. It’s not like that. At the end of the day, it’s golf. We’re all trying to play the best way we can, and that’s it.”
Garcia kick-starts his quest for a second Augusta green jacket at 9.12am local time in the company of American Chris Kirk and Kiwi Ryan Fox.
