Sergio Garcia admits that winning the Open Championship remains his biggest goal and the one thing that he’d love to achieve more than anything else in the game.
The 2017 Masters champion is a two-time runner-up in golf’s oldest major, most famously losing in a playoff to Pádraig Harrington at Carnoustie in 2007, and in a lengthy podcast conversation with Rick Shiels, Garcia covered a wide range of topics, including life as a LIV Tour member, his Ryder Cup experiences, how he got a stain on his Green Jacket the day after winning the Masters, and, of course, his hopes for the future.
“Yes, golfwise? The Open,” he replied when asked what was the one thing he’d love to do more than anything in the next 10 years, and he intends to keep returning to Open Championship and US Open qualifying should he remain non-exempt into both major championships.
“Without a doubt. Obviously I would love to qualify without having to go to the qualifier, but that’s my last resort and I did it last year for the US Open and made it, played it the US Open, and for the Open, I was looking good but unfortunately, just missed out on by one spot. But, like I said, people were like “it’s so great to see Sergio going, and with everything he’s achieved, going and trying to qualify,” but I love golf and I love playing majors. And I’m going to give myself the opportunity.”
He went on to explain that he doesn’t see playing in a qualifier as being beneath him in any way, given that he’s widely regarded as one of the most talented players of the past 25 years.
“We have a saying in Spanish, ‘my rings are not going to fall off’ because of me going to play a qualifier. It doesn’t bother me to do that and I’m happy to do it. Some people think ‘oh, he’s putting himself down,’ no, not at all. There’s great players there and guys that have done really well in their career and they’re still trying to get into some of those majors by playing those qualifiers, so I don’t see it as a downer and because of that, I love the challenge. I was looking at my schedule the last couple of days for next year and I’ve already written – hopefully I don’t have to play them – but I’ve already written the qualifiers for the US Open and the qualifiers for the Open so that I know where they are and that I can play them.”
His tied 27th finish in last year’s US Open is the last tournament in which he’s earned world ranking points and since fallen to 606 in the world as LIV continues to fall outside the requisite criteria in the eyes of the Official World Golf Rankings committee, but in the interview which was conducted late last year but not released until this week, he admitted that he’s planning a return to DP World Tour action in 2024.
“I’m going to be a member again of the European Tour,” he said, “and I’ll play my four events or something like that, so maybe if I do well in those I can get myself in [to the three majors in which he’s currently non-exempt] somehow.”
“I think you’re allowed to play as many [DP World Tour events] as you want,” he added, “but obviously I’m not gonna play – I always said when I joined LIV that I wanted to still keep being a member of the European Tour and play my minimum at least. Play my four events and keep my card and stuff. Obviously they didn’t make it too easy to do that, but one of the reasons why I joined LIV was to play less and spend more time with my family, so I’m not going to play my 14 LIV events and then play 10 or 12 more European Tour events because that defeats the purpose of trying to spend more time with my family, but we’re willing to make the little extra effort to at least keep my membership.”
At the time of writing, there has been no official confirmation from the DP World Tour that Garcia had, in fact, taken up membership once more and he’s not played in any of the four DP World Tour events thus far in 2024, but as well as the carrot of a possible path to the major championships, playing in the Ryder Cup still remains a big goal for the competition’s leading points scorer.
“Only playing a handful events, it is not easy to make it unless you do super, super well. But I guess at the end of the day if I am eligible, they see I am making the effort and I do well with LIV and I am consistent then at least hopefully I can be considered, not only because of my game but what I can bring to the team, and my history in the event,” he said.
Leave a comment