Sergio Garcia has the temperament of an only child (a dig at myself), and he treats golf courses like his own rage room. Just this year, he's destroyed bunkers, intentionally damaged greens, got disqualified for said damage, and then he threw a driver at his caddie without warning.
It's not been a good year for Garcia, but it's numbed us to the routine tantrums a 39-year-old man has on the golf course.
Nevertheless, Garcia is still out there mangling golf courses, including at last week's 2019 WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational. A fan in Memphis took video of Garcia at TPC Southwind in Saturday's third round, with Garcia smashing his driver into the tee box and taking an enormous divot following a frustrating drive.
What in the world is he doing here? He's messing up a tee box, where there's barely a blade of grass missing, because he hit a bad drive. He's making the course worse for his fellow competitors. Then again, he already did that this year in Saudi Arabia and willfully got disqualified for doing so. In his apology for the Saudi International DQ, Garcia vowed not to do this kind of stuff again.
In a statement, Garcia said: “I respect the decision of my disqualification. In frustration, I damaged a couple of greens, for which I apologize for, and I have informed my fellow players it will never happen again.”
The thing is, Sergio Garcia is so likable in a personal setting. He's charming and polite and handles himself so well. What is it about golf, then, that drives him to do this? Garcia's professional results since winning the 2017 Masters have not been great, but does that merit these regular outbursts?
There will be calls for the PGA Tour to take some action, maybe suspending Garcia. However, his biggest offenses were in European Tour or co-sanctioned events. It'll be difficult to make the case.
