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Sergio Garcia will miss out on The Open Championship this season after his most recent performance at a qualifying event. The LIV golfer had some strong opinions on the outcome after the fact.
Garcia blamed both fans and officials at the qualifier for slowing his play. After receiving warnings about pace, he says he felt rushed for the remainder of the event.
Ben Parsons of Bunkered broke the situation down on Wednesday.
The flame still burns bright inside this impossibly-talented but tempestuous Spaniard – and that’s why his second near-miss in two years at Final Qualifying for The Open will sting…
Garcia was despondent but proud after rounds of 71 and 70 meant he came up just shy.
What must be noted, however, was that he and his playing partners Alex Maguire and Sam Bairstow played this qualifier in almost entirely different circumstances to the other 69 players in the field.
Parsons wrote that Garcia’s group was playing with a much larger audience due to his popularity, estimating crowds of 2,000 people following him throughout the course.
Those fans caused a bit of a hiccup in the golfer’s game.
Caddies were doubling up as security in attempts to move spectators and keep them out of harm’s way. Delays were seen as a result, leading course officials to warn the group.
Garcia says he played “sped up” the rest of the way.
“It’s very simple. When you have 2,000 people following us with no ropes, nothing. The marshals were trying to do as good a job as they could do but obviously, we had to stop pretty much on every tee for two or three minutes to hit our tee shots because people were walking in front of the tee and on the fairway.
“Unless we wanted to start hitting people, we couldn’t hit. I don’t think they took that into account and that was unfortunate because it made us rush. On a day like today where the conditions are so tricky, and you might need a little bit of extra time here and there it doesn’t help out.
“Because of that I made a couple of bogeys that cost me getting to Troon.”
It’s not the first time he’s lashed out at rules officials, but it’s obvious he felt impacted by the chaos on the course.
Sergio Garcia will miss out on The Open Championship for the second straight year.
The Spaniard last made the field in the 2021-22 season where he shot -2 at St. Andrews GC. He missed the event by just two shots last year and saw another close call in this week’s qualifier.
After making the move to LIV in ’22, he’s done his best to compete in the majors.
He teed it up at the US Open last month, placing 12th on the leaderboard. He also made the Masters field, though he’d miss the cut in Augusta.
His major season officially came to an end after this most recent qualifying event. Apparently, he has the fans to blame…