El Niño Lets His Putting Do The Talking
There's one tournament you want to win (aside from any major) in your career, and that's The Players Championship. This week, Sergio Garcia showed us why he is easily one of the top players in the world despite his #18 (as of 5/11/08) world golf ranking...not that being 18th is shabby. Garcia's last professional win, PGA or European, was in 2005. Since then, he's had some massive struggles with either his putter or his attitude, and has been the victim of some relatively harsh media criticism. Some of the criticism has been deserved. Remember the incident at the 13th hole of the 2007 CA Championship when Garcia missed a par putt and spit into the cup? I wouldn't even call it "spitting"...he didn't forcefully spit into the cup; rather, he...um...dropped some saliva after he bent over to pick up his ball in disgust. Was he pissed? Of course. Frustrated? Positively. Was it immature and uncalled for? Absolutely. In this "gentleman's game" you just don't do stuff like that.
But I digress.
At Carnousie last year, Garcia missed a 10-foot part put on the final hole after blowing a 3-shot lead to win the Open Championship, forcing a playoff in which he lost to Pagraig Harrington. Winning the Open Championship would have solidified Garcia's status as one of the top young players in the game, but that loss along with the press conference the followed (he mentioned that in any tournament it was more than just him against the field, it was him against the field AND the media) showed that El Niño was still immature and had some things to learn about his game and himself.
Coupled with his brilliant ball-striking, Garcia's putter really came through this week with some huge putts. He drained more long putts than I can ever remember, and even though he still missed some of the shorter ones Garcia managed to be much more consistant on the greens that we've known him to be. He's been putting in some quality time with Stan Utley, a former PGA pro who is now one of the top teachers in America, focusing mostly on putting and chipping.
On Sunday Garcia drained a 14-footer for par on the 9th, and then sunk a 47-footer on the 14th for a birdie. His final putt for par on 18th was a testy 7-footer, which he made and was good enough to get into a playoff with Paul Goydos. On the first playoff hole at 17, Goydos ballooned his tee shot and came just a few feet short of the green, while Garcia punched a wedge to the center of the green to within 7 feet, thanks partly to a gust of wind. Signed, sealed, delivered.
However, something very important will get overlooked by all of this putting talk, and that's how frightening Garcia was off the tee. The weekend turned windy, and Garcia hit 10 of 14 fairways on Saturday and 14 of 18 greens, which is just absurd considering the difficulty of the course as well as the windy conditions. He hit all 14 fairways on Friday, and ended up 1st in driving accuracy and 1st in greens in regulation for the entire tournament. There are only a couple of other players that could have been that accurate - Fred Funk and Scott Verplank - both who missed the cut. Personally, I think that this might have to rank as one of the best weeks of driving for any player ever, factoring in course difficulty and the late round gale-force winds. Let's not mention the pressure to perform well after a 3-year winless drought. It was a truly remarkable display of hitting.
You have to wonder now if Sergio might be able to pull some nifty tricks from up his sleeve and maybe capture his first major this year. He's come close before as noted above at Carnoustie. You aren't going to win the US Open if you can't find the fairways and that might be Tiger Wood's greatest weakness at those tournaments. Of all the majors Tiger has collected, "only two" are US Opens. While Tiger has won at Torrey Pines more times that I've filled my car up with gas last year, his spectacular putting and recovery is what allows him to be less than accurate off the tee and still give himself a fighting chance. Sergio is essentially the opposite - his driving as of late is spectacular, but his putter might end up being his Achilles' heel.
If Garcia can maintain the improvements he's made with the flatstick and even improve upon THAT, we may have to start calling El Niño "El Hombre." Certainly a win at a tournament of this caliber against the most solid field in golf will be a great confidence booster.