Garcia gunning to make Shanghai cut

FRESH from his remarkable 11 strokes victory in front of his home fans in Castellon on Sunday, Sergio Garcia has moved down the coast in western Spain to Valderrama where the €3m Andalucia Masters gets underway tomorrow.

Garcia’s 27 under par total in the Castello Masters has been bettered only once on the European Tour and it is hardly surprising he has been installed the 13/2 favourite to land the first prize of €500,000 on Sunday. A win is absolutely crucial for the 31-year-old Spaniard given nothing else will get him into the field for the US$7m WGC-HSBC Championship in Shanghai next week.

Garcia readily acknowledges he again needs to be on top of his game, considering defending champion Graeme McDowell is in the field, along with in-form Swede Peter Hanson and Denmark’s Thomas Bjorn, a man with fair claims on the European Tour’s player of the year title after his three wins so far this season.

And Justin Rose, like Sergio, has temporarily departed his home in the US in search of a big chunk of prize money that would ensure his place in the field for the Dubai World Championship in December. Rose is currently 73rd in the order of merit, 13 spots outside automatic qualification.

However, Garcia is the focus of all attention for Spanish fans and he was oozing confidence yesterday as he looked forward to a week that means so much to him. He was quick toexpress his liking for the Valderrama course — voted number one in continental Europe for 2011 by Golf Monthly magazine, and also insisted he had no fears of the controversial par five 17th and the infamous lake fronting the equally dangerous two-tiered putting surface.

“It is one of my favourite courses anywhere”, Garcia declared. “Whether you are hitting it high or low or with a draw or fade, you need to be on top of your game. It is always very challenging and a great test. I have been very close here a few times.”

If he has reservations about the 17th, he wasn’t admitting to any. “I like it”, he insisted. “If you hit a good shot, you get rewarded, if not, you get punished.”

McDowell and Miguel-Angel Jimenez would go along with that assessment. Both have scored albatross twos at the hole, Jimenez doing so in the 1999 WGC-American Express Championship in which he lost in a play-off to Tiger Woods. However, Woods and a number of other Americans saw little good in a hole redesigned by Seve Ballesteros for the 1997 Ryder Cup match.

“It is pitiful”, claimed Hal Sutton, after seeing Woods and Tom Lehman hit shots that moved at a snail’s pace across the green and into the water.

Nick Price wasn’t one for complaining but even he admitted “I didn’t have any shot in my repertoire to hold that green so I didn’t know what to do.”

Woods was leading that American Express event by one until he dunked a nine iron third shot in the lake. He scraped home by one. The Yanks, by the way, weren’t the only ones complaining.

“I hate that hole”, admitted Colin Montgomerie.

That may be one good reason why Monty isn’t here this week. Like many others, though, he will keep a close eye on the 17th over the next four days with a combination of anticipation and a little sense of mischief!