Last weekend, Sergio Garcia was paired with Austin Connelly for the third round of the Italian Open. This wouldn’t be noteworthy if not for their first meeting 18 years before when Garcia was a young pro and Connelly was just a young fan. A very young fan.
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Before the two teed off, Connelly’s mum, Bridget, shared this adorable photo taken at the 1999 GTE Byron Nelson Classic. At the time, Sergio Garcia was about to make his first pro start at 19 – he finished T-3 – and Connelly was all of two years old.
Not surprisingly, the photo drew plenty of reaction on Twitter, including this from 2018 European Ryder Cup captain Thomas Bjorn:
Garcia tried to make Bjorn feel better with this tweet:
Neither played particularly well on Saturday with Garcia shooting 70 and Connelly, now 21, carding a 72 as both dropped well out of the top-10 entering the final round. But the two still seemed to enjoy their their reunion nearly two decades in the making:
And they even recreated that adorable photo from long ago:
Sergio Garcia and Austin Connelly reminisce about their meeting 18 years ago#ItalianOpen pic.twitter.com/1JqAs69Pdm
— DP World Tour (@DPWorldTour) October 14, 2017
There you go, Mrs Connelly. That’s another keeper.
