Garcia still in the driving seat after surviving disqualification threat

SERGIO GARCIA came dangerously close to disqualification in the tournament that he has dominated from the start here at Valderrama.

After coming home in 31 shots for a 69 to get to six under and take a one stroke lead into the weekend, the brilliant 24-year-old Spaniard was required to explain exactly what had happened at the short 3rd hole where he had taken a double bogey five.

He would have been thrown out of the tournament if he couldn’t satisfy chief referee John Paramor that he had not broken the rules when dealing with a lost ball.

Garcia’s original tee shot landed in a rough area behind trees and he played a provisional. This came to rest 12 feet from the pin and he immediately decided it should be the ball in play.

Incredibly, nobody in the gallery informed him that the original had been found and Garcia was delighted to leave it at that. “I told my caddy not to look for it, I didn’t want to know about it,” said Garcia. “When nobody in the crowd signalled they had found anything, I thought that’s fine because I knew it wasn’t in a nice place. I never looked to see if anybody had found it, my focus was all about playing the second ball.

“That was the ball I wanted to play. I was very surprised when I saw John Paramor in the scorers tent because I knew I hadn’t done anything wrong.

“I told John I had definitely indicated I was playing a provisional ball and he was satisfied. I’d be the first not to want to play tomorrow if I was guilty because I could not live with that kind of thing.”

Paramor has been the European Tour’s chief referee for many years and has a reputation as a tough disciplinarian, which Garcia discovered to his cost after an incident in Australia a couple of years ago. Once the possible infringement was brought to his notice, Paramor made his way to the television compound. There he watched the tape and listened for the words “provisional ball” - crucial under Rule 27 (2) - being spoken by Garcia but didn’t hear them.

“When I asked Sergio if he had actually used the word provisional he insisted that he had and this was confirmed by his playing partner Jose Manuel Lara (a close friend of Garcia’s) and his caddy,” said Paramor. “He had taken his two shot penalty.”

Paramor, however, agreed it was “bizarre that nobody in the crowd told him they had found his original. I’ve never known anything like it before.”

When Garcia took 38 shots to the turn at Valderrama yesterday, it looked as if he might be losing his way. But there’s no accounting for genuine class and he duly proved he has it in abundance as he came home in a five under par 31 for a 69 that leaves him on six under par at the halfway stage.

The highlight was a cracking second shot to the 17th that finished within 15 feet of the flag. He missed the eagle putt by inches, got his birdie and then closed with another from 12 feet.

“The incident at the third never influenced the way I played afterwards,” Garcia said. “I had birdie chances on almost every hole on the front nine.

“I was putting within fifteen, eighteen feet every time. My game was spot on as soon as the third hole went away. I played fifteen really good holes of golf.”

Garcia now leads by one from the Scot Alistair Forsyth and by two from Ian Poulter, the colourful Englishman who shot 67 and was the only player to remain bogey-free. Angel Cabrera, the big-hitting Argentinian, and Christian Cevaer of France are next on three under with Pádraig Harrington best of the Irish on even par and tying for tenth. He remains very much in the hunt even though he accepts that taking six yesterday at the relatively innocuous 16th has seriously harmed his prospects.

Harrington was only one shot out of the lead when he came to grief. He drove into the trees on the right, came out and into a bunker well short of the green, splashed out to 35 feet, charged the first putt six feet past and missed the return. He was tempted to take on the 17th with a three wood for his second but decided against it and duly finished with a couple of pars. He had earlier birdied the 7th, 9th, 11th and 13th and felt his round of 70 was “okay and certainly kept me in the tournament.”

“I’m obviously disappointed with 16 where I lost a bit of focus but it’s easy to take six around this golf course. I had 234 yards to the front of the 17th so it was within range. But it was gusting at the time, the ball had got wet as we waited so my strategy was to lay it up as close as I could and I got my par five.

“When Lee [Westwood] heard about Darren, he admitted he could have been inches away from taking eleven himself, his ball stopped on the fringe, and had it gone in, he had the same shot again. I hit a sand wedge in there to about ten feet and got a big clap. There’s something up when you get applause for an ordinary shot like that. I wasn’t looking for that soft, glancing blow up there.”