Sergio Garcia is probably a mystery to himself, but his considerable and enduring appeal is certainly hard to pin down.
The Spaniard has moved into the World’s Top 10 again – for the first time since September 2009 – as a result of his play-off win on Saturday in the Qatar Masters. He’s been as low as 85th during this intervening spell, not a seismic collapse by some standards, but still notable enough for a player of his talents.
Yet during this time Sergio’s popularity with the public and with sponsors has barely wavered. Even though there’s those regular tantrums, those cringeing displays of intense self-pity and self-examination, and very public feuds with other leading popular players like Tiger Woods and Padraig Harrington.
Even when he sticks his designer golf shoe squarely in his mouth, like he did with his “fried chicken” remark about Tiger Woods at the European Tour dinner at Wentworth last year, it has next to no effect on his popularity.
Witness when one American website cast some aspersions on a Sergio “rules drama” at Abu Dhabi the other week; the madcap rush to defend and exonerate him was in marked contrast to the continuing furore over Tiger’s “cavalier” rule interpretations of last year.
Taylor Made are the leading golf equipment company on the planet with about half the drivers and woods sold – Nike, for all their mega-deals with Tiger and Rory, don’t even come remotely close and they’ve been perfectly happy to have Sergio as their most recognisable contract player throughout his entire career. One presumes they’ve got some benefit and continue to do so from this prolonged association with a major-less player often typecast as a few castanets short of a full flamenco.
You’d also think the Americans would unanimously loathe Sergio for his continuing Tiger feud and his success in the Ryder Cup, where he has been a big factor in Europe’s continuing success since he made his debut in 1999.
There are a few people in the media and the tour who actively dislike him, but allowing for a few squawkings at events in the wake of the friend chicken farrago, his popularity especially among the sizeable Latin demographic – seems to largely have held up unhindered.
Indeed, his plaintive comment the other week that “I don’t know how many times I can apologise” for his foolish and unguarded comment last May seems to have drawn a line under it for good. He’s offered his hand in contrition to Woods several times and it hasn’t been taken leaving Tiger, somehow, now looking almost petty and begrudging.
Until that furore, Sergio looked on the cusp of a pretty decent season in 2013. It still turned out to be okay, but those of us who had a crown or two ready to put on him at Muirfield one of several Open venues which suit his superior ball-striking – thought it could have been a good deal better.
Armed with a reliable “claw” putting stroke, maybe it’s time to conclusively end the suggestions which he actually agreed with on one occasion that he’s too flaky to win a major.
Tee to green he’s as good as anyone there is, and halfway decent on the greens might be good enough some time. He’s also just 34, and you can rattle off a host of players like Mickelson, Harrington, Hogan who were that age before they won their first major.
This year the Open’s back at Hoylake, and many will recall that Sergio was in the final group with Tiger on that sun-burnished Sunday back in 2006, and in a group of three just a shot behind. It’s funny how time plays tricks I was there that week, only suffering slightly from heat-stroke, and until I looked it up I thought Tiger had cake-walked the championship.
Everyone recalls Sergio showing up at the first tee dressed in an eye-watering canary yellow from top to toe, as Tiger strode out purposefully in his traditional red, a few minutes later than his adversary, flanked by (wholly unnecessary) security guards. And almost nobody thought Sergio was going to win from that moment, before a shot had been hit.
He’s more mature now, and made of sterner stuff. Hoylake is a ball-strikers’ course with not a whole lot to fool those who are tentative on the greens. Could it be Sergio’s time?
*The R&A announced yesterday that they will allow distance-measuring devices (DMDs) in all their Amateur events in 2014, which is simply another move along from the thin end of the wedge to the thick end.
The majors and the top-end professional tours will now be the only events where you don’t find players squinting into those little telescopic sights.
The R&A first cleared DMDs for use in 2006 by way of an optional local rule for championship committees. The PGA, at the club pro competition level such as the Tartan Tour, quickly embraced it no doubt thinking of new sales opportunities in the pro-shop and they moved into national amateur events soon after.
The R&A have adopted a local rule for 2014 allowing them at all their events up to the Amateur but not the Open or qualifying for the championshipyet.
It’s probably only a matter of time, though, and one part of me is sanguine about it. The satellite technology exists and it’s not going to be un-invented, so it would be daft just to ignore it.
However I’m still very sceptical that DMDs speed play up. Players still need the crutch of the yardage book – to be fair, a properly prepared player will have a number of important annotations scribbled in there as well as just yardage and the DMD is just an additional thing that needs to be taken out, pointed at target, read and put back in its little carrying bag.
And then there’s context. When the DMDs were allowed in the Boys Championship a couple of years ago, I well recall some poor lad hacking around high in the Murcar dunes before mercifully finding some cut stuff on his fourth shot.
Sizing up his approach, and despite the fact his opponent was on the green in three, our plucky hero duly whipped out his DMD for the yardage.
He missed the green, of course. And only then mercifully conceded.