Sergio Garcia has already been a vice-captain on one Ryder Cup team. He doesn’t plan on doing it again this year if he isn’t picked to play on his fourth consecutive team.
The 38-year-old Spainard has struggled this season. He’s dropped from 10th to 27th in the World Ranking and missed the cut at all four majors. He won’t auto qualify for the European Ryder Cup team, so he’ll need to receive one of Thomas Bjorn’s four captain’s picks if he wants to play in his fourth consecutive Cup.
And if he’s not selected but instead asked to help out as a vice-captain again, like he did in 2010, Garcia said he’d likely pass.
“Probably not,” he told Alan Shipnuck on the GOLF.com Podcast. “I have done that already and I know how hard it is to be an assistant captain, so probably not.”
Garcia has played on the European Ryder Cup team eight times, but in 2010 he failed to make the team. Struggling most of that season — he ended the calendar year 78th in the World Ranking — a 30-year-old Garcia asked captain Colin Montgomerie if he could be a vice-captain. Montgomerie accepted, and the Europeans won 14 1/2 to 13 1/2 at Celtic Manor in Wales.
“At the moment I don’t want to think about [being a vice-captain] because I want to be a part of the team as a player,” Garcia said. “I don’t even want to think about it that way.”
Bjorn will need to look beyond several in-form players if he picks Garcia come Sunday. Garcia is 19-11-7 all-time in the event, and his 22 1/2 points earned are tied for the fifth-most in European history. Whether he’s there or not, he thinks it will be an exciting matchup.
“I think it could be one of best Ryder Cups ever,” he said. “I think the quality of the players on both sides of the Atlantic are very good.”
You can listen to the complete podcast below. Besides the Ryder Cup, Garcia and Shipnuck discuss his new life as a Texan, the resurgence of Tiger Woods and more.
