NAPA, Calif. – Sergio Garcia took his wife, Angela, to Theorem Vineyards in nearby Calistoga on Tuesday and planned to hit up a couple more wineries ahead of the opening round of the Safeway Open on Thursday. It’s what you do here, but make no mistake about it: this is a business trip for the 40-year-old Spaniard who missed the FedEx Cup Playoffs for just the second time in his career.
Sure, Garcia was motivated to make his first appearance at Silverado Resort and Spa, the kickoff event of the PGA Tour’s 2020-21 season, but he also was anxious to continue the quest to rediscover his game, which has been missing in action practically since the crowning moment of his career, when he won the Masters in 2017. It’s hard to fathom but Garcia has recorded just one top-10 finish in his last 18 Tour starts and is winless on Tour since donning the Green Jacket.
He’s here, in part, because his season ended prematurely after the Wyndham Championship, leaving Garcia three weeks to spend with daughter, Azalea, and son, Enzo, play some tennis and decompress. But now he’s recommitted to bringing his best to a season unlike any other, with six majors, a Ryder Cup, and 50 Tour events in all. He would like to jump-start his season this week.
“It definitely would be nice to get some good mojo,” he said during his pre-tournament press conference. “I feel like my game, it feels pretty good. It’s just a matter of kind of getting things going in the right direction, getting the ball rolling nicely and kind of riding that good wave.”
Garcia, who has tumbled to No. 44 in the Official World Golf Ranking as well as the Golfweek/Sagarin Rankings, is way too talented to struggle for too long. To what does he blame his on-course funk?
“Well, it’s quite simple,” he said. “The last couple of years some of my decisions when it comes down to equipment and stuff like that didn’t help me. Obviously took some of my confidence away. This year has been trying to find myself back a little bit, trying to find my feelings, my good feelings that I had in the past. I feel like I’m starting to get there, I feel like I’ve been playing much better, I feel like I’ve been hitting the ball much better. I just need to tweak a couple little things here and there and just get some good confidence going, some good things happening and then I feel like I can start doing some beautiful things again, which I’ve done pretty much my whole career.”
Garcia has experienced the occasional lapse in performance before and emerged the better player for it. As for his very un-Garcia-like performance of late, 50-year-old Tour sage Jim Furyk, one of the Tour’s steadiest players of the last two decades, called it “surprising,” but said it happens to even the best of them.
“I think that everyone goes through periods — even think about like Jack Nicklaus, pretty much the greatest player of all time, went through some periods of his career where he struggled. When I say periods, I’m not talking like a month or two. He had a year where he struggled and maybe, you know, put his nose to the grindstone, went back to visit his teacher, started throwing some extra effort in. Eventually, when you do that, you keep working at it and you keep grinding, things come around,” Furyk said. “Sometimes the truth hurts. You want to overlook maybe the weaknesses, what’s ailing you, but really going to work on getting back to basics, going to work on the parts of your game that are struggling. Sometimes just being real honest with yourself, why am I not playing as well? I know everyone goes through that and I know that he’ll come out of it.”
A good week at the Safeway Open could be just what Garcia needs to turn the corner and be ready for next week’s U.S. Open at Winged Foot, and so he is here for more than just the red wine and some world-class meals with his wife. Garcia still has his eye on the biggest prizes in golf.
“I didn’t want to go into the U.S. Open without playing for four weeks,” he said. “So, at least get a little bit of competition energy going, competition like fluids coming into your body, you know … hopefully some good feelings, playing well and get some good confidence going into Winged Foot.”
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