Despite the little bit of scruff on his chin and cheeks, Sergio Garcia still looks like the teenager who was tabbed as the golfer to challenge Tiger Woods more than a decade ago.
But Garcia is now 32 years old, still without a major, but good enough to be playing in his 14th Masters. It’s not an event in which he’s done well. He tied for fourth in 2004, but has also missed the cut four times. He is 4 under after Friday’s second round and trails the leaders by a stroke.
The Garcia who sprinted up the fairway to follow his amazing banana shot at the PGA Championship in 1999, has been replaced by a more introspective veteran who acknowledges he doesn’t know if he’s ready to win a major.
“I’ll see, we’ll see,” he said. “Depends upon how I play tomorrow, and then it depends how I go out there on Sunday and how I play.
“I wish I could tell you I’m ready to win, but I really don’t know.”
He has been close.
He lost the 2007 British Open in a playoff and came across as petulant afterward by saying, “I’m playing against a lot of guys out there, more than the field.” He also finished second in the ’99 PGA.
Garcia was 4 under after the second round of last year’s Masters, six shots behind Rory McIlroy. He climbed to 7 under after Saturday’s first nine, but blew up on the second nine with a 42.
Walking up 18, Angel Cabrera put his arm around Garcia and gave him some words of encouragement.
“He told me to keep going, these things happen,” Garcia said. “‘If you keep doing what you are doing you will be fine.’ It was a nice talk at the time because it wasn’t a great moment for me in the round. Hopefully it won’t happen again.”
Garcia’s not totally somber.
He gave a lewd gesture, with a big smile as if to say ‘no offense,’ to a reporter who asked about an infected fingernail on his left hand that he is been playing with this week. He said the finger doesn’t affect how he grips the club. He had the same infection last year on a different finger, which caused him to withdraw from British Open qualifying.
“It’s obviously a little uncomfortable,” he said. “Early in the day it’s worse, but as the round goes on it probably opens up a little bit and it loses a little bit of that [inflammation].”
And he seems more than capable of having fun on the course. He hit 13 of 14 fairways Friday and needed just 25 putts to navigate the course. He’s yet to three-putt a green.
The only thing that stopped him from tying for the lead was a bogey on No. 18, which tripped up many of the leaders. Lee Westwood was leading at 6 under until he double-bogeyed the hole. Jason Dufner also bogeyed it.
After the close calls, Garcia seems better prepared mentally for what could be a packed leaderboard Saturday.
“It [major championships] asks for everything you have, and if you are a little bit off, and you lose a little bit of confidence, it can cost you,” he said.
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