All things considered, Sergio Garcia did an impressive job of keeping his cool on Thursday at the Masters despite depositing ball after ball into the water at the par-5 15th en route to an octuple-bogey 13. There were no club throws, no profanities shouted, and no real display of the rage that had to be building up inside, likely out of respect for Augusta National. No disrespect to TPC San Antonio, but it ain’t Augusta National.
So when Garcia’s second-round struggles at the Valero Texas Open came to a head on the tee at the par-4 fifth, Sergio could no longer harbour his rage, providing an epic meltdown complete with a driver toss into the woods that clanked off a rock. Here is the throw in GIF form:
https://twitter.com/SI_Golf/status/987372529521233920
The big stick went so deep into the bushes that it took Garcia over a minute to find it, and when he did, the driver doubled as an axe as Garcia took a mighty chop against a bush reminiscent of his lash at a gorse bush during last year’s British Open. Luckily, Garcia suffered no injuries this time.
Sergio Chucks Driver Into Bushes: A Four-Part Series pic.twitter.com/xuCnYaBle0
— Dan Rapaport (@Daniel_Rapaport) April 20, 2018
Somehow, it got worse when Garcia got to his ball to hit his second shot, which was well left of the green but pin high at the short par 4. Obviously still seething from the tee shot, Garcia proceeded to shank his chip, and it skidded across the front of the green and into a small gallery of fans on the other side. He would go on to bogey, which has him on the wrong side of the cut line late in his round. While the body language isn’t great for the Spaniard at the moment, perhaps it was time to release a little rage, for therapeutic purposes.
