Why The Flawed Fascinate: The Lure of Sergio Garcia

There is a fascinating bit of golf writing, from early in the last century, that tells how boring it is to write about good golf. Of course, it's true and nothing about the last hundred years has changed anything. Good golf is marvelous to play and can be interesting to watch, but it will always be the failed golf shot which will be the most long remembered, for both witness and player.

Bad shots are flaws and so they catch our eye like a nick in the case of a fine watch. Mark my words that if Tiger Woods should continue to struggle to find the fairway, to a degree that it affects his dominance, that will mark the time when he shifts from being a player who is immensely respected to one who is truly loved.

Phil Mickelson has achieved such affection, though not from me. I have found his faults to flow too much from a failure to know himself completely, both as a man and a player, and from a frustrating inability to address his weaknesses. What's more, Mickelson has the terrible habit of rationalizing the irrational, or, perhaps worse, has grown too willing to fall on his sword in an effort to again understand what's really up in his head.

Sergio Garcia has always been a fascinating player to me. Yes, he is blessed with immeasurable talent yet the engine of his talent is a body that always appears boyish and even somewhat frail. In fact, Garcia looks not a lot different at 27 than he did at 19. There is nothing about his physical bearing that will remind anyone of Woods' imposing physical presence. Garcia has to get every ounce out of his body on every shot to make it all work. Through the pigeon-holing prattle of the television commentators the unthinking fan might confuse him for a genuine, freewheeling Spanish swashbuckler like his heroes, José Maria Olazábal and Seve Ballesteros. But Garcia is far from that. Instead he is a pacing brooder, a player who is often as much the hunted as the hunter, at least in his own mind.

It was easy to do the math and conclude that all he needed was to shoot par to win the British Open. It was just as easy to understand that his mind would find that to be a significant challenge no matter how Carnoustie played on Sunday. After the last putt was holed and Padraig Harrington had spent enough time with the Claret Jug to decide what he was going to drink from it, Garcia had begun to confound the golf press in his post tournament interview.

He spoke of having to wait some 15 minutes before he could play his second shot on the final hole of regulation, and of playing against more than just the field. He was a man speaking with both his mind and his heart and it made everyone pretty uncomfortable. They were not the kind of words we're used to hearing from players who have just missed their most recent chance at a major. Because I enjoy watching Garcia play so much, there is a part of me who wants to explain away what he had to say. But, because his flaws, as both a player and a man interest me much more, I find it easy to resist the temptation, for the most part.

In an era where the average tour pro is both publicly self deprecating and bland, we have in Garcia someone who we can truly wrap our hearts and brains around. His is not merely a tragicomic drunk like John Daly, one whose flaws are so hit you on the head obvious as to make him much more of the tour's answer to a freak show, or American Idol, whichever you find more corosive to the American soul and psyche.

Ah, but Sergio Garcia, here is a player that we can identify with. Here is a player who has said out loud what others have only thought. Somehow, most people find it easier to accept Tiger Woods making veiled excuse after veiled excuse about why things didn't go his way, but doing so in such an incisive and clinical way that most never even realized that they have feasted on words stripped of their meaning. And think about it: In the world of Tiger Woods how often does this really happen? After all those majors you'd think that the guy could tell it straight just once, but I've never heard him do it.

It also seems that we readily accepts the likes of a Colin Montgomerie who, again and again, has seen fit to run and hide following a less than satisfying round or tournament. All those Order's of Merits have not brought Monty to a place where he can honestly confront his failings yet to the seekers of golf's gray and drab that is so much better than letting it all hang out a la Garcia.

With Sergio Garcia, we are forced to look at the grand in one instant and the wretched the next. Perhaps there will come a time where he learns to say the right thing, when he finally grows up as so many have said. I'm not sure I share that sentiment. While I hope that Garcia continues to evolve as both a player and as a man, I also hope that he never loses that willingness to display his fabulous vulnerability, an emotional truthfulness that so many less interesting players would work so hard to hide. Sergio Garcia is not always easy to watch or listen to, but he will always be my very favorite player, as much for the wretched as the grand.