Sergio García has made a painful bogey on the first hole of his final round at the Masters de Augusta playing with Jon Rahm. First because he missed the fairway to the right and then because, after a notable second shot and an outstanding approach from the left of the green, a one-and-a-half-metre par putt slipped away. The round was already going uphill and the patience of the man from Borriol is not exactly overflowing right now
On the second hole he again used the driver off the tee and, once more, missed to the right. It was not a gross error, far from it. It simply ended up in the large left fairway bunker that swallows balls like Pac-Man. Sergio’s reaction, very frustrated, was to strike his driver hard twice against the ground and then hit a drinks fridge. Right there the club broke, the shaft separating from the head. He threw the shaft away and put the head in his bag
The gesture did not go unnoticed. The Spaniards’ group was one of the featured pairings of this final day of the Masters and it was shown on the TV broadcast. Moreover, at that hour there was nothing else on. It quickly went viral. An Augusta member and Geoff Yang, chairman of the Masters’ competition committee and the frontrunner to replace Fred Ridley as chairman, approached Sergio on the fourth hole and had a brief conversation with him. It is not known what they told him, but it sounded like a reprimand. We’ll see if it goes no further, although around Augusta there is talk of possible sanctions against the man from Borriol
At the end of the round, Sergio was asked about the matter. “Obviously I’m not especially proud of it, but sometimes it happens. It’s not just frustration from this week, I’ve been like this all year,” he said. He also did not want to go much further. He preferred not to comment on the conversation they had with him on the fourth hole. “I’m not going to say,” he stated. And when he was asked again, his answer was even more evasive: “next question”. We’ll have to see if there’s a sanction and what becomes of it
The incident meant Sergio played 16 holes without a driver. It is not the easiest course to face without that club, although the man from Borriol was almost ironic about it. “I like to play with a driver, not without it. To be honest, I don’t know whether I’ve made more or fewer strokes than I would have with it”, he said. It should be remembered that Sergio himself admitted this week that the main problem this week was the driver. He’s missing it to both sides and that ends up affecting the rest of his game. It’s the foundation of his golf and when it fails everything suffers
Beyond the irony that he might even have made more strokes playing the driver, Sergio admitted he missed it throughout the round… “Of course I missed it. On the 3rd, on the 5th, on the 7th, on the 8th, on the 9th, on the 11th, on the 13th, on the 14th, on the 15th, on the 17th and on the 18th. Apart from those, on none others. Not on the par-3s, of course… although almost on the 4th”, he finished with a smile
