Garcia’s slump a mystery

SIX months ago who would have foreseen the possibility of the European Ryder Cup team facing the Americans in October without Sergio Garcia?

Since 1999, the Spaniard has been a major force in the competition and even if his contribution dipped at Valhalla in 2008, he wasn’t the only one guilty of such failings on that occasion.

Furthermore, at 30 he should be approaching the best years of a career that began as a teenage amateur when, at 19, he chased Tiger Woods all the way home in the US PGA Championship at Medinah in 1999, a year in which he captured his first professional title, the Murphys Irish Open, at Druids Glen.