Golf Central

We either like, dislike or are indifferent to golfers for a number of reasons – some valid and some simply the result of a personal predilection that can’t really be explained by logic. And despite his many tantrums, like kicking his golf shoe towards an official, being fined several times for poor behaviour, spitting in the hole, getting over-enthusiastic at The Ryder Cup or whingeing that he never gets a break after last year’s Open, we have rather a fondness for the young scamp Sergio Garcia.

His mistakes are those of impetuous youth, and if he’s still doing the same things in another few years we may have to revise our opinion but he wears his heart, and often some pretty lurid outfits, on his sleeve and even we can remember what it’s like to suddenly erupt in petulant fury at the unfairness of it all.

Okay he’s rich, extraordinarily talented, good-looking and earns his living doing something supremely well that tens of millions around the world struggle to do very poorly, so he probably doesn’t deserve our sympathy. But just maybe he should, on occasion, be indulged with a little tolerant understanding.

Ever since he won his first European Tour event – in only his sixth start as a pro in the 1999 Murphy’s Irish Open – it has been clear that the lad has talent to burn. He followed that by finishing third in his debut US Tour event, the GTE Byron Nelson Classic and then underlined all that potential by pushing Tiger all the way in that season’s final Major, the US PGA Championship at Medinah. It was there that his drive on the 16th finished behind a large tree, from where he hit a 6-iron, with his eyes closed, and ran down the fairway in a moment of spontaneous delight at his own ability, to watch it land on the green.

He has since come close in Majors again, most notably in 2007 at Carnoustie (we’ll overlook his disastrous outward nine in the fourth round at Hoylake in 2006 when he lost, again to Tiger, because he decided to dress like a canary) and for someone of his ability, to blow a three-shot lead on the final day must have hurt a great deal. That, the fact that he goes through caddies they way Alan Sugar goes through apprentices and his period of constant gripping and re-gripping the club in 2002, hint at inner turmoil of the sort that most us, thankfully, are unlikely to experience on a golf course.

Even worse was his putting stroke, once a thing of smooth precision but in recent seasons about as reliable as a Nick Faldo wedding vow. Watching Sergio over a crucial six-footer was akin to watching England in a penalty shootout – a long drawn out torture in which hope springs eternal but is inevitably misplaced.

For the obvious agonies he endured on the greens, and we’re not sure they’re over yet but let’s hope, we can’t help but feel sympathy. And if for no other reason we like the man-boy because of the adolescent enthusiasm – and considerable success – with which he goes head-to-head against the Americans every two years in the Ryder Cup.

All of us have moments from our youth that we would rather file in the part of our brain marked ‘permanently forgotten’ but Sergio’s have been lived under the most intense public scrutiny and will therefore always be around to haunt him. But his triumphs, too, are examined in microscopic detail so let us hope that his victory in the Players Championship will give him the positive reinforcement that paves the way for him to triumph in a real Major – because we fear that if he doesn’t soon, then he never will.

The chief note of caution, but one that has to be expressed, is that Tiger wasn’t there but for the moment, Sergio, enjoy the victor’s spoils and let them convince you that on your day, you can be the best.