At Open final qualifier, Sergio Garcia mishits 5-footer — then rips photographer

Sergio Garcia took three shots from just off the green, then fired one at a photographer. 

In a wild sequence on Tuesday during a final qualifier for the Open Championship later this month, Garcia was nearly home in two on the par-5 16th at West Lancashire Golf Club, had a 5-footer for birdie — only to back off it, hit, miss and explode. The episode was first reported by the Irish Independent.  

Garcia’s words were just eight. 

“D***! As if it’s not frickin’ hard enough” he said, according to the Irish Independent. 

Two holes later, Garcia’s bid to play in a 26th-straight Open fell short. He finished at six-under over the 36-hole event, three shots away from the qualifying score. 

According to the Irish Independent, Garcia was eight-under through 24 holes, then bogeyed the 25th (the par-4 7th at West Lancashire) after a chip flew the green, and the 28th (the par-4 10th) after a three-putt. From there, Garcia played even-par golf, with a birdie on the 11th hole and a bogey on 13th. 

“I was rolling nicely, I got a pretty bad break on seven in the afternoon and it stalled my momentum a little bit,” Garcia told the Irish Independent. “Then it was tough to get going again, but I gave it everything I had. I was thinking probably eight might get to a playoff, but I was trying to get to 10.

“If you come here, you put yourself in that situation. I felt I had it close, in the grasp of my hand, but that’s what it is. I was trying and unfortunately it just wasn’t good enough.”

Notably, the blowup is not Garcia’s first, his most recent before Tuesday coming in one of his last PGA Tour events before joining LIV Golf. At the Wells Fargo Championship last May, Garcia was told by a rules official a lost-ball search had taken too long — which drew this response from the Spaniard: 

“So, you’re saying it took too long?” Then he turned away and offered these words: “I can’t wait to leave this Tour.” 

“I can’t wait to get out of here, my friend,” Garcia continued. “Just a couple more weeks and I won’t have to deal with you anymore.” 

News

Memorably, the PGA Tour said the official ruled incorrectly, but the call stood. And about a month later, Garcia was in the field for LIV’s first tournament. 

At the final qualifier on Tuesday, Garcia shot rounds of 67 and 71. In all, 19 players advanced to the Open Championship, scheduled for July 20-23 at Royal Liverpool. (Matt Wallace, Matthew Jordan, Kyle Barker, Alex Fitzpatrick and Tiger Christensen at West Lancashire; Michael Stewart, Marco Penge, Connor McKinney and Graeme Robertson at Dundonald Links; Martin Rohwer, Thomas Detry, Charl Schwartzel, Branden Grace and Antoine Rozner at Royal Cinque Ports; and Laurie Canter, Brandon Robinson Thompson, Matthew Southgate, Jazz Janewattananond and Oliver Farr at Royal Porthcawl.) 

“It was just a grind,” Grace said Thursday, ahead of LIV’s event this week in England. “For me personally, I missed last year’s Open at St Andrews, and that was pretty painful. I’ve played a lot of them in a row now, and that was one that you don’t really want to miss.

“I think anytime there’s an opportunity to be able to go and qualify for a major, we’re going to take it on. It doesn’t matter — like you said, Sergio, look at him, he’s played in so many. I think one of his major runs are coming to an end now because he didn’t qualify, but we all still want to compete against the best. We all want to play in the best events.

“Yeah, I was going to go either way. It’s just nice that, like you said, that fire is still there, that you really wanted to play well, really wanted to make it and just go and try and give it another go. I believe I can still win one, so I’ll do everything to try to get to this one and the next ones coming.”