Thought it might be a good time to take a look at Sergio Garcia through a stretch of him playing well. I grabbed a few stills of him from the telecast. He appears to be working the shaft better around his body post impact than I have seen before.
It’s painful watching Sergio putt. He doesn’t putt like he swings. The claw grip I would guess is going to work better on very fast greens as you don’t have to do much with the putter. Watney won this event in spite of some horrific shots coming down the stretch.
A drive so far right into the woods, on I think 14, should have been OB or a lost ball. They found his ball with a perfect lie and a clear shot. That was a two shot swing. Watney then hitting a 9 iron from 135 yards into a right green side bunker likely resulted from protecting against a pulled iron… usually I see him pull misses left. When you get that steep coming down you invite a greater left side vector of possibilities into the equation. Watney made another 3 putts outside 15 feet coming down the stretch, so that saved him and secured the win. Once it was clear that Sergio was not going to able to putt any pressure on Watney due to his putting woes, Nick was able to coast it in.
I don’t disagree that over the week Sergio seemed to hit the ball the best with multiple shots finishing really close to the hole. On the last day Watney did hit 17 greens though which is pretty impressive on that course as firm as the greens were. The two holes you mentioned not withstanding he drove it great which meant he was in the fairway with short irons in. He looked pretty good in all honesty.
Also, let me state that I also agree that Sergio has a better swing and is a good model. I just think we should give credit where credit is due.
I’m almost always disappointed with the ball striking on tour these days. However, Watney deserved the win no doubt.
But I grew up and played in the tail end of the era of great ball strikers where guys that were winning tour events were not missing greens with 9 irons coming down the stretch and if they hit a drive 40 yards right into the trees they paid with penalty shots and often didn’t win. While Watney did hit 17 greens… he hit only 9 greens on Saturday. He made an incredible number of putts as the stats showed compared to Sergio.
It was pretty much a two man match most of the day… and seeing your opponent draining putts from all over the place while you miss everything in sight can be quite frustrating. You have to putt well to win. Sergio didn’t putt well enough to win.
My point is that if any of these guys had been putting for Sergio he would have walked away with this tournament and won back to back weeks. The reason he doesn’t win more often is because his putting is very suspect in general.
As far as Sergio’s golf swing… I think it is top stuff… but I don’t like the re gripping of the club that he does right before he starts his backswing because of the difficulty in maintaining proper grip pressure throughout the swing that such a habit promotes.
Just my observations is all.