Is Sergio Garcia an angel or a demon?

For the second year in a row, Sergio Garcia attracted a crowd at Final Open Qualifying that, dare I say it, would rival most of the LIV Golf events he plays in.

His gritty and determined attitude is to the taste of UK golf fans and again at West Lancashire Golf Club on Merseyside, thousands of them were tucking into the action.

He walked off the driving range that runs parallel to the 1st hole with his Airpods in his ears and a smile on his face, the type of confidence and relaxation you would expect from a former Masters champion. He was last to tee off in his three-ball with Sam Bairstow and Alex Maguire at 7.50 am.

A little after 6 pm, he carded a second-round score of 70, after a 71 in the morning, which wasn’t enough to take him through to The Open at Royal Troon. He winced, he laughed, he complained and he smiled during 36 holes in which so many fans were entertained and willing him on.

“I’m out there and I’m trying as hard as I can to get into The Open because I love The Open and I love playing majors. It’s tough when you’re that close and you finish right on the edge, but unfortunately, I won’t be able to make it,” he said, speaking to the press despite experiencing the same bitter disappointment he did 12 months ago at the same venue in Northwest England.

“Amazing. Both years, to come out here and have about two thousand people following at an Open qualifier, I can’t thank them enough. I’ve always said it, I love playing here in the UK, I love The Open and I’ve been very successful there, so I always enjoy it and I’m always very thankful for everything that the British crowds have given me in my career.”

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That is what the 44-year-old Spaniard shares with all of us. Golf’s oldest major is as close to his heart as it is to ours, and he enjoys sharing his experiences on the best-rugged links tracks with us. Afterwards, he signed items for young golf fans and shared pictures with them too.

On the 15th hole in his second round, Garcia pulled his approach left of the green. Some fans moved from behind him as he eyed up where to land his pitch. “If you stay still, you’re fine. If you keep moving, you’re not,” he joked with them. They laughed and another group of fans laughed as well.

Even when defeat was inevitable and he needed to hole a long birdie putt from the fringe of the 9th green, his 36th hole, he grinned to his caddie about something. And then he faced the music, so to speak, after he signed his card. Garcia came out of the scorer’s hut and showed no hesitation in speaking to members of the media.

In nine paragraphs, I have described why we root for this flamboyant European icon. We all fist-pumped when he won the Green Jacket in 2017 and when he holed putt after putt for Team Europe in his seven appearances at the Ryder Cup. But what his time in Liverpool also showed is why some fans don’t take to Garcia.

Sergio Garcia: Open Qualifying showed his light and dark side

On the 8th hole in his first round, he was heard complaining to a rules official after his group was given an official warning for slow play. A referee told NCG that the group were four minutes behind their expected pace and the gap showed no sign of narrowing.

“It’s very simple,” he said. “When you have 2,000 people following us with no ropes, nothing. The marshals were trying to do as good a job as they could do but obviously we had to stop pretty much on every tee for two or three minutes to hit our tee shots because people were walking in front of the tee and on the fairway.

“Unless we wanted to start hitting people, we couldn’t hit. I don’t think they took that into account and that was unfortunate because it made us rush.

“On a day like today where the conditions are so tricky and you might need a little bit of extra time here and there it doesn’t help out. Because of that, I made a couple of bogeys that might cost me getting to Troon.”

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The referee told NCG that the group’s pace of play was not because of the fan presence and the task of moving them to one side to allow the players to play.

Severeal groups were warned about how fast they were playing on a tough, windy day which contrasted to the sunny, dry conditions that Garcia found in this month of 2023 at Final Open Qualifying. With news spreading and words being written about this verbal altercation, comments on social media circled and a phrase began to form in my mind: we’d seen this movie before.

One of his most recent misgivings was at the 2022 BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth which he withdrew from after one round, the same year the event was reduced to three rounds due to the Queen’s death. No reason was given for pulling out but the next day, he attended a college football match in Texas.

At the 2019 Saudi International, he admitted to purposefully damaging greens and was disqualified for serious misconduct. Brooks Koepka subsequently accused him of acting like a child. He has also been partial to spitting into the bottom of holes earlier in his career.

Add these to loud and aggressive tantrums in bunkers, taking off his shoes and kicking them across a tee box and airmailing a club into the air, two of which can be found on the same YouTube compilation.

So what is Sergio Garcia? Is he an angel or a demon? Golf fans have loyally looked past these episodes for years hoping for a grand finale which they were given at Augusta seven years ago.

We thank Garcia for the memories he has given us but do we resent him for exposing his dark side?

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