 The past year has been the year that might have been for Sergio Garcia, who put himself
in positions to win a number of significant titles with sublime ball-striking, only to be
failed by the putter at the final few hurdles. It is surely only a matter of time before
the Spaniard converts in a big way.
The explosive star returns to Sun City in a bid to win his third Nedbank Golf Challenge
title and his current form suggests that he might well pull off the victory.
With his runner-up finish at the 1999 US PGA Championship at Medinah Country Club
outside Chicago, Garcia launched his reputation as both a wunderkind and a whiner with the
American media.
Then a 19-year-old PGA Tour rookie, Garcia finished second to Tiger Woods and burst
onto the scene with a joyful scissor-kick as he pranced across the 16th fairway. The
highlight, celebrating an improbable approach shot off a root at the base of a tree that
kept him alive against Woods, held such promise for a rivalry between the American
superstar and the swashbuckling Spaniard.
In 1999, people recognized his extraordinary talent and that youthful, Spanish flair,
and wanted more. They certainly got it, although much of it they didn't like.
Since then Garcia has been both loathed and praised by the media on both sides of the
pond, so often that they don’t even know whether to officially like him or root
against him. Unlike his fellow Spaniard Seve Ballesteros, who showed a consistent, though
contentious, relationship with the American media and was great at needling American
players, the 28-year-old Garcia has had a love-hate relationship with American media and
fans, vacillating between hero and villain.
He is certainly one of the best ball-strikers on the PGA and European Tours, betrayed
these last few years only by his putter, which he is loathe admitting to the media. And,
of course, he won The Players Championship this year, the biggest win of his career. He
putted well, showing that his work with short-game maestro Stan Utley is paying off.
Although he has fulfilled some of his early promise with wins on both the American and
European tours, he has often faltered in the ultimate golf limelight, the Majors, 2008
being no exception as he came so close at the PGA.
Having contested 36 majors, Garcia is now the best player not to don a Masters green
jacket or win a US Open, to hoist the Open's claret jug nor the PGA Championship's
Wannamaker Trophy.
He has impishly implied that title might go to Adam Scott instead but this illustrates
Garcia's best effort to avoid a moniker all players dread, particularly those who might
have enough talent to make the short list.
But despite the Major disappointments, Garcia still lifted the PGA Tour’s Vardon
Trophy for lowest adjusted scoring average, ranked fourth on the PGA Tour money list and
counts runner-up finishes at the USPGA, the Barclays and the Tour Championship this
season. More importantly, he is still only 28 years old!
Over the years, one of the favourite Nedbank Golf Challenge moments is the sight of
Garcia enjoying all the non-golf activities at Sun City, clearly having a whale of a time.
And yet on the first tee he is all business, relishing the challenge this golf course
presents even to a ball-striker of his precise quality.
His 2001 victory at the Gary Player Country Club was one of the most dramatic in the
tournament’s history. He fired a final round 63 to tie Ernie Els and holed a chip at
the first extra hole to take the title. The two-time champion (2001 and 2003) promised to
return and 2008 may just see him finish a so-nearly-phenomenal-season on a high note. | 
