Sergio Garcia started his 2025 LIV Golf season in excellent form with a 6th-place finish in Riyadh, followed by an 18th-place finish in Melbourne. In his third start, in Hong Kong, Garcia won by three on the back of a final-round 63.
After that victory, Garcia, who is the European Ryder Cup team’s all-time points leader, was asked whether he was hopeful that Luke Donald, the 2025 European captain, had been keeping tabs on Garcia’s form.
“I think he’s watching,” Garcia said. “We’ve been in touch, so I know that he’s keeping an eye. The only thing I can do is keep playing good golf, and I just want to help the European team like I’ve tried to do every single time I’ve been a member of that team, and hopefully he will think I’m good enough for it.”
Donald said in October that he’d had “some chats” with Garcia about the potential for the Spaniard’s Ryder Cup return, but that any path back would need to begin with Garcia rejoining the DP World Tour. A month later, Garcia did just that, after paying off fines that he had incurred by playing for LIV Golf. The wheels were officially in motion.
Earlier this week at the PGA Championship, Donald did not speak specifically to Garcia’s chances of earning one of Donald’s picks (there is, of course, far still too much golf to be played for that kind of speculation), but the European skipper did say that, given the raucous environment that players will encounter at Bethpage Black in September, he will “give a little bit more importance to experience, people who have been able to handle those big moments under the most scrutiny, those major championships, people who can step up, have had chances to win or have won major championships.”
Advantage, Sergio? Perhaps.
A couple of starts after Hong Kong, Garcia put another notch in his belt when at LIV’s Miami event, on a difficult Trump Doral setup, he finished third. After the second round that week, a reporter went so far as to ask Garcia if he felt like he was playing the best golf of his career. “I obviously feel pretty comfortable about the way I’ve been playing the last year and a half or so,” Garcia said. “But I still think that 2008 was my best year, the way I felt there with my game.”
But then came a stumble: a 72-76 week at the Masters and a missed cut. Two weeks later, at LIV’s Mexico City event, more messiness: Garcia finished 50th, just four places out of last, followed a week later by a T42 at LIV Korea.
That brings us to this week at the PGA Championship, the tournament at which, at Medinah in 1999, a 19-year-old Garcia scissor-kicked his way to a stirring runner-up finish. This week at Quail Hollow, however, Garcia has produced no such fireworks, beginning with a seven-bogey 75 on Thursday. Garcia bounced back in the second round with a 68 before regressing with a third-round 79 that included a pair of double-bogeys. On Sunday morning, he cruised through his first 15 holes, making six birdies against just two bogeys, but then came undone on 16, where he splashed his approach shot en route to a double bogey. He finished with a two-under 69 and at seven over for the week.
Afterward, Garcia was asked about any positives he could take away from his performance.
“Not many,” he said, before citing making the cut and “not finishing last on Sunday. But other than that, not a lot more. Too many terrible shots.”
As for his Ryder Cup chances? Garcia did not sugarcoat them.
“The way I’m playing, even if Luke offered me a pick right now, I would tell him no,” he said. “Obviously, I need to get better. I need to get more where I was just before the Masters. You know, just show myself and show everyone that my game is solid, and it can help Team Europe. It’s as simple as that.”
The upside for Garcia: He still has time to right the ship, including, potentially, two more major starts. The downside: He will need to play his way into the season’s final two majors, the U.S. Open at Oakmont and the Open Championship at Royal Portrush. Should Garcia qualify for neither, it will become much harder for Donald to assess his form.
Garcia remains hopeful.
“There’s still two or three months until the team is finalized,” he said. “I’ll have time to gain some confidence and improve a little bit on my game.”
