Garcia ready to take a giant step

SLOW but gradual improvement has been Sergio Garcia’s way since he first contested the British Open Championship as an amateur at Royal Lytham St Annes in 1996.

Few need reminding of how an opening 89 left him at the very end of the field after the first round at Carnoustie in 1999 when he missed the cut by miles. Since then, though, he has gone 36th, ninth and eighth, a progression that entitles him to a legitimate degree of confidence going into this week.

Carnoustie could have left an indelible scar on the vastly talented 23-year-old Spaniard but to his credit he has more or less erased it from his mind. Indeed, he insisted: “I’ve improved a lot as a player but not just that. I’ve matured. I’ve gotten bigger. I know how to handle myself better. I’m more patient. Those are things that really help when you are out on the golf course.”

Garcia, of course, is a great supporter of Real Madrid and is delighted at the arrival of David Beckham at the Bernabeu. He doesn’t know as yet whether Beckham plays golf but he is a fairly regular partner of the Brazilian star Ronaldo.

“He says he’s an 18 handicap but I’d say he’s probably about 14. He enjoys it but he can’t hit the woods,” he revealed.

Garcia and his father and coach Victor decided a year or so ago that he would have to undergo a fairly radical swing change if he was to reach the levels many people have been predicting for him for a very long time. It’s undoubtedly one of the chief reasons why he hasn’t enjoyed a great season so far having finished in the top 10 in all four majors in 2002. He was a very disappointing 35th in last month’s US Open and 28th at the Masters.

“It’s a work still in progress although I don’t think about it so much any more,” he said. “I have to improve a little more and it’s coming along. It’s feeling more and more comfortable and that’s why results are starting to come slowly.

“I wasn’t too frustrated when things were poor enough at the start of the year because I knew what I was doing and I thought, just take it slowly. You’ve got to realise these things take time.

You have to wait and that’s what I did.”

One of the most memorable major championships of modern times was the US PGA Championship at Medinah in 1999 when Garcia played the famous shot from the roots of a tree and chased Tiger Woods all the way to the line and eventually missed out by a single shot. He was only 19 at the time and it looked as if a really potent force had arrived to challenge Woods’s status as the game’s greatest exponent. It hasn’t quite turned out that way but it is still a mouth-watering prospect that they are playing together today and tomorrow along with the young Englishman Luke Donald.

“I’ve always said I like to play with the best,” the Spaniard said. “I played with Ernie Els at the Masters and really enjoyed it. I’ve worked hard all my life to put myself in position to play with the game’s greatest. Seve, Olazabal, Monty, Justin Rose, Ernie are the kind of guys I would seek advice from about playing links courses. And Tiger, of course, although I wouldn’t rate him as the top one in these kind of conditions but he can definitely play, there’s no doubt about it.”

As for expectations that he should have won a major by now, Garcia retorted: “I know what I’m capable of and that’s the important thing for me.”

And the chances of a first European winner since Paul Lawrie at Carnoustie in 1999?

“Hopefully a Spaniard,” he quipped