……….. Fatiha Betscher, Pacific Palisades, CA
Sergio Garcia tees-up in this week’s Northern Trust Open looking to end a two-year PGA Tour winless drought.
Garcia’s last victory was a year ago in banking the Commercial Bank Qatar Masters in Doha.
However he makes his 2015 year debut on the PGA Tour at this week’s Northern Trust Open in suburban Los Angeles not having tasted a PGA Tour win since capturing the 2012 Wyndham Championship and the very week after Rory McIlroy had lifted the Rodman Wanamaker Trophy.
However did almost everything last year except winning competing in 16 events and enjoying 10 top-10s that included three seconds and a pair of thirds.
Garcia, now aged 35 and ranked No. 7 in the world, kick-started the Tour’s 2014/15 wraparound schedule with a second place finish in last November’s CIMB Classic in Malaysia before he recent defence in Doha, where he finished T46th, and then heading to Dubai where he missed the cut in the Dubai Desert Classic.
Sergio Garcia’s last victory was at the 2014 Commercial Bank Qatar Masters. (Photo – Eoin Clarke/www.golffille.ie)
“I’m excited about it, and we’ll see what we are able to do,” said Garcia. “I’m probably not feeling at my best level at the moment. … The last couple of weeks, practice was OK but not amazing.
“Hopefully I can get some confidence as the tournaments go on and start to find my groove and my game.”
Garcia is no stranger to Riveira and this week being his ninth Northern Trust Open start and having previously enjoyed a best finish of T4th along with other top-10.
“I really love the golf course,” Garcia said. “…Even when it plays soft, but when it plays firm, it’s the kind of golf course that is asking you to hit the proper shots.”
Garcia, who expects to return to the United States for the Shell Houston Open and the Masters, hopes he has those shots this week. He can’t pinpoint any one part of his game that is holding him back but it’s not quite all there.
“I guess comparing it to last year where I had such a nice consistent year where every part of my game felt really, really good; I guess a little bit of everything,” he said. “I think that my long game, it’s been OK, but not to the standard that I usually have it. Short game, it’s been a little bit shakier than it has been in the past three or four years.
“I guess it’s just a matter of kind of building up a little bit of confidence and kind of getting into the rhythm and start doing good things.”
Garcia has won eight times on the PGA Tour, 10 wins on the European Tour and another seven worldwide.
With Tiger Woods on a self-imposed and indefinite leave after nursing injuries for the better part of the last two years and Phil Mickelson’s game hardly up to par, Garcia now finds himself battling an extremely talented crop of twentysomethings for supremacy in the game. He still has goals, lots of them, but he’s also gained perspective on his position in the game.
“We could sit here and talk about things that could have gone better and obviously things that could have gone worse,” Garcia said. “But I think at the end of the day, it’s … just trying to help your game, the game of golf, be a better game for everybody else.
“That means not only playing well and winning things and achieving things, but also trying to bring the game nicely to kids or to people that maybe don’t have the same capabilities that we do to play it, and make the game better at the end of the day.
“Then on a personal side, I want to try to achieve as many things as possible. Some of them I’m sure I’ll be able to and some I probably won’t. But at the end of the day, I think if I give it everything I have, … I can’t really ask myself for anything else.”
* Thanks to www.pgatour.com
