Ponte Vedre, FL …

A very frank Masters champion, Sergio Garcia confessed he has been disappointed in his poor play over two rounds and putting that down to the overwhelming sentiment he has enjoyed in a first event back to competition since winning at Augusta National

Garcia, and very much more than for most new Major champions, has been congratulated at the every turn of the TPC Sawgrass course and venue for this week’s Players Championship.

Of course, the 39-year old Garcia has won on 31 occasions in his professional career dating back to 1999 when he broke through to capture the Irish Open.

Sergio Garcia overwhelmed being Masters Champion.

But none have meant so much to the Spaniard nor the golfing world than his stunning play-off success in the Masters.

Garcia spoke of the enormity of his victory but how it is impacting on his golf as evident in posting rounds of 73 and 71 for an even par tally after two days of the $US 10.5m event.

“Well I would have — I’m not going to lie, I would have loved to have played better than I did the first two days,” he said.

“It has been overwhelming, I’m not going to lie. I haven’t won a Major and I haven’t won the Masters before, so I didn’t know exactly what to expect and what to feel.

“To come back to this golf course that we know how challenging it is, it’s maybe not the best thing, but it is the way we planned it and we live with it. I think that mentally I can hopefully — like I said before, I can free up a little bit on the weekend and play a little bit better.

“I’ve hit some really good shots but I hit some shots that I wasn’t hitting lately, so I need to kind of tighten that up a little bit.

“But even like that, I felt like I fought hard the last two days after a terrible start, and it’s a shame because today without playing amazing, I felt like I could have shot 3-, 4-under par and that would have been really, really good”.