Sulky Sergio Europe’s best chance

IF a happy attitude to life is essential for success in sport, then somebody should tell Sergio Garcia.

The Spaniard is the top ranking European in the world (7) and accordingly should have the best chance of becoming the first golfer from this continent to win a major championship since Paul Lawrie at Carnoustie in 1999.

But if his manner and tone at his press conference is a reliable yardstick, then he is unlikely to break the South African-American stranglehold on the game’s greatest prize. He was grumpy, irritable, threw his eyes up to heaven in unconcealed frustration at the mention of Tiger Woods’s name. And isn’t it just a little ironic that Garcia was first embraced as a world star by the golfing media and fans during the 1999 US PGA Championship at Medinah.