SERGIO GARCIA : Fast & Loose

Golf Digest, Feb, 2002 by John Hawkins

Blessed with a game and a style that no other 22-year-old can match, Sergio Garcia barrels through life with the same fearless enthusiasm he displays on the course. Balancing the pace of America with the Old World charm of Spain, Sergio is growing up. Fast.

SEVENTY MILES SOUTHWEST OF DOWNTOWN ATLANTA, THE CALLAWAY Gardens Resort sprawls like a sleepy dog across 14,000 acres of Georgia countryside, its Dixie charm reflected in such tourist attractions as the Cecil B. Day Butterfly Center and the fabled Overlook Azalea Garden. The accompanying hamlet of Pine Mountain is a Norman Rockwell leftover, a one-stoplight town where life adheres to the pace of a flower's unhurried bloom. * As Sergio Garcia whips a gray Ferrari 360 Modena through the grounds and onto Highway 18, however, there is no time to stop and smell the roses. The two-lane road is vacant in both directions. Turning west, Garcia guns the engine and cooks each gear to an rpm overdose, devouring the strip of rural asphalt as if Tiger Woods is in a Buick nine miles ahead. * The Ferrari hardly breaks a sweat as it climbs past 100 miles per hour, although the thought of an idle pedestrian or stray deer has turned the passenger into a puddle of middle-aged trauma. Garcia seems oblivious to the danger. Soothed by a world at 175 feet per second, he pushes the car harder, his reflexes in command, the blind spots of his youth concealed by his prowess behind the wheel. * Back home in Borriol, Spain, Garcia buzzes the hills in this same model of Ferrari, a $190,000 automobile--before taxes, title and dealer prep. His top speed? "I cannot tell you," he says. "You're a media guy." On this gorgeous autumn afternoon, the needle grazes 140 mph before Garcia returns to Callaway Gardens, at which point the life-imitates-golf metaphor has become difficult to ignore. "Like a 12-year-old on acid," is how good friend Jesper Parnevik puts it. "You saw Sergio at the [1999] Ryder Cup? That's how he is all the time--like the Energizer Bunny, 24 hours a day. Did you know he's never had alcohol? Never been drunk in his life. Maybe he should try some."

At the age of 22, Garcia's mercurial career has already produced a scrapbook full of lasting images, not all of them pretty, many of which seem only to hyperbolize his brilliance, his audaciousness, his childishness. Four victories in 2001--two in the United States, one in Europe and one in South Africa--elevated Garcia from 16th to sixth in the World Ranking, earning him $5.5 million worldwide and absolving him of the notion that potential is life's greatest curse.

In his first PGA Tour round as a professional, at the 1999 Byron Nelson Classic just north of Dallas, Garcia had dazzled golf's universe with a 62, as if a grand entrance was part of the show. He finished tied for third that week, but what made the occasion memorable were the hundreds of teenagers longing for a piece of Garcia afterward. Surrounding the practice green at TPC at Las Colinas, they chanted the Spaniard's name, lobbing golf balls at him to sign as he moved toward the clubhouse.

"Kind of makes you want to be 19 all over again," sighed Nick Price.

There he was born: Sergio the International Superhero. Approachable and less arrogant than the Godfather of European Golf, Seve Ballesteros, Garcia had Seve's savvy but also a distinct fondness for America--magnetism and pragmatism. He would play against the best in the world on a regular basis, even if it meant seven or eight overseas trips each year. He would bask in all the worship, stare down Woods, hit impossible shots with his eyes closed, change clothes in a phone booth and still find time to moonlight as a charm bracelet.

A trans-Atlantic Trevino, El Nino seemed too good to be true. Turns out he was too young for his own good.

Less than three years after that magical day in Dallas, the joy ride has yielded to its share of hairpin curves. "There might have been a rush to judgment as to who would be Weiskopf to Tiger's Nicklaus," says one observer. "It was a little bit of a media creation in the sense that he was here and now. As we were all looking for challengers to Tiger, wondering where everybody went, some of us close to the situation could see Sergio was still growing. Mentally, physically, emotionally."

Young and younger

It is easy, or at least convenient at times, to forget how young he is. When we talk about the great players of tomorrow--Charles Howell III, Luke Donald, David Gossett, all of whom are older than Garcia--the Spaniard is frequently left off the list, perhaps because he is so far ahead of the others, because he reached the top so swiftly. Because he is here and now.

Born nine days into the '80s, Garcia even owns a birthday worthy of a new generation. "Of all the players out here, he probably maneuvers the ball better than anyone," says Joe Ogilvie, an occasional practice-round partner who won two of the first Nike Tour events Garcia entered back in 1998. "He can hit it really low, really high, he can turn it over, he can cut it. He can do just about whatever he wants to with it."