Sport

Life's a bit of a breeze

Sergio Garcia The demonstrative Sergio Garcia is not what you come to expect from golfers

Johnny Watterson at the K Club
Thu Sept 21 2006 - 01:00

Sergio GarciaThe demonstrative Sergio Garcia is not what you come to expect from golfers. The control and repetition demanded by the sport has tended to produce the type of character that reacts to a short ball into the lake with the same equanimity as a pitch into the cup from 120 yards. That's not the tribe Garcia comes from.

The highest-ranked European in the team, Garcia breezed in yesterday after a nine-hole romp around the course and, except for a short interlude to explain that he had not insulted Tiger Woods by saying that the American had not performed in the Ryder Cup, settled into a light-hearted exchange.

But 'El Nino' became the first person to positively embrace the blustery, high-wind conditions that curtailed yesterday's practice session for both teams. There were no gripes or insecurities to report from the Spaniard.

"If I could choose I'd take the rain away but I've always enjoyed these conditions," he said cheerily. "When it's windy you are not always hitting the same shot. You are hitting drives that are going 340 yards with no roll and you get to the next hole and you're hitting a 140-yard 7-iron (7-iron is normally 175 yards plus). So it just changes dramatically.

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"I think it brings a lot of feel into your play, your creativity. So I have always enjoyed that kind of play. I've always liked when the wind has been blowing at the British Open. I've always felt I could move up the leaderboard a lot easier than if I had to play just normal golf, where it's pretty much just hit close and put it in."

The assumption, one Woods disputed, is that the conditions are ill-suited to the Americans, who tend to play in a less hostile environment.

Garcia sees an advantage.

"I would probably say it gives us a little edge. I'd say we are more used to playing these conditions. Pretty much we grew up in these conditions and the Americans are not so used to it."

Tiger's view was starkly different.

"I think we've all played in weather like this. We've all played in bad weather all around the world. It's all about quality of ball-striking, controlling your flight."

Not for the first time have these two disagreed.