AUGUSTA, Ga. >> He has grown up in a picture window. Every growing pain, self-inflicted and otherwise, has been broadcast without filter.
Now Sergio Garcia is 37, with spots of gray in his beard and a hairline in retreat, and still you look at him and see 1999.
That was when El Niño jumped into world golf at the PGA Championship, bashing an iron shot from a tree root and literally doing the run-skip-jump to see where it landed.
Tiger Woods won that tournament but Garcia won the snapshot, and we all hoped he would either create a rivalry or maybe supersede one.
That was Woods’ second major title. He would win 14. Garcia is still at zero. Twenty-two times he has finished in the Top 10.
The yawning chance was at the 2007 British Open at Carnoustie, when Garcia’s winning putt danced on the edge and then danced away, and Garcia, stricken, lost the playoff to Padraig Harrington. He then lost to Harrington at the PGA Championship and whined, conspiratorially, about the fates that betrayed him. By then El Niño was a problem child.
Now Garcia sits on the lead at the Masters Tournament, with Justin Rose, at 6 under par. He has obeyed the template of the Masters winner. He has no double bogeys. He has not three-putted yet.
He has shrugged off the shrapnel and reminded himself that he still hits the ball as purely as anyone living, and he has learned to let his competitors create their own problems, too.
Most impressively, Garcia seems to have convinced himself that this Masters is not his last chance, that even if he loses he isn’t’ consigned to carry the goose egg that, fairly or unfairly, has defined Colin Montgomerie and Lee Westwood, among others.
He is engaged to Angela Akins, a former University of Texas golfer and Golf Channel personality who is the daughter of a former Longhorns quarterback. He has had trouble getting to the metaphoric clubhouse in that area, too.
“My mentality has kind of changed a little bit,” he said, “as far as thinking things. I’ve actually gotten some good breaks in the first three rounds.”
Prominent among those was a shot that Garcia thought he had dumped into the creek in front of the 13th green. Instead it held up on the far bank, and Garcia artfully chipped up and made birdie. He has bogeyed only five of his 54 holes so far.
“The main thing that has improved is the way I look at it,” Garcia said. “If you try to fight this place, it can beat you down. You just try to calm yourself down, take some nice, deep breaths. In the end, if you do your best, that’s all you can do.”
Everything Garcia has done is on the permanent record, but one cannot doubt the thickness of his skin, or his durability. He has played in 72 consecutive major championships. That means, for one thing, he was good enough to qualify, but also that he has dodged the injuries that flourish in repetitive-motion sports.
He hits the weight room when he has to, but he’d rather play soccer or tennis. One of the most vivid memories of this long blooming process is a scene at La Costa, during the Accenture Match Play. Garcia was playing tennis after his round. On the other side of the net was his girlfriend at the time, Martina Hingis.
As most athletes build barbed wire around their private lives (or try to orchestrate them on social media), Garcia has laid himself bare. He made no effort to disguise his heartbreak when Morgan-Leigh Norman, Greg’s daughter, ended their relationship. Another girlfriend, Katharina Boehm, even caddied for him. Then she fired him, according to Garcia, and they eventually broke up.
And there was the 2002 U.S. Open when Garcia kept gripping and re-gripping the club in OCD fashion, and New York fans let him have it.
And there was the 2012 Masters, when Garcia came up short and then told Spanish reporters, “I’m not good enough. I have no more options. Tell me the thing I can do. After 12 years I’ve come to the conclusion that I need to play for second or third place.”
Now Garcia says he’s working on “learning to accept things,” and that having “people in my life who aren’t afraid to tell you when you’re wrong” is important.
Garcia didn’t even lose his tether on Friday when the scoreboard temporarily docked him two strokes, because of a computer glitch. He said he knew where he was all along. The window might be closing, but we’re still watching.
