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Monday morning caddyshack: Ole!
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I wonder if the Romans gathered around the aquaduct on Monday mornings to discuss the carnage at the coliseum over the weekend? Oh, the fun they would have had with Sergio Garcia...
Mass media, the Internet and sports in this day and age all intersect to create an intriguing phenomenon of cultural memories that you don't even have to have participated in the first time around to still be part of. We form unique, personal and intimate relationships with moments that millions have taken in, often after the fact. I am protective of my memories, while at the same time touting my coolness for having arrived at them. First.
It reminds me, in many ways, of my relationship with bands I "discovered" in high school. Bands that subsequently "sold out" when they gained the popularity I always thought they deserved. And so it was, while watching the flashback to Medina in 1999, that I had one of those protective moments. It was in Medina in 1999 that we were introduced to Sergio the Kid, Garcia the Upstart, the young Spainiard who was obviously enjoying playing golf, was brash enough to challenge Tiger and had the game to back it up.
It was Medina in 1999 that we, or at least I, started rooting for Garcia. After his run at Tiger in that, his first PGA Champsionship, he was destined for greatness. No? Tiger has obviously spoiled us, because we expect every next good player to rise to such lofty heights. And Garcia, for better or worse, was immediately expected to compete at the same level.
Sergio's accomplishments over the past nine years on the PGA Tour are pretty stellar: 7 tournament wins, 7 2nd-place finishes, 7 3rd-place finishes, 56 top 10's and career golf earnings of over $22,000,000. That's a lot of zeros. But the biggest zero on Sergio's card is the column for wins in a major. Major wins are how we define greatness, how we seperate signal from noise in an era when the worst players on tour make a better living than 99% of the rest of the US population.
Sergio, yet to win one of those elusive majors, has yet to live up to the hype - if not his potential. Ever since I became emotionally attached to Sergio, I've held it against him that he can't seem to win the big ones. He is the great hope that has never materialized, the cross I bear as a fan every time I root for him coming down the stretch. When they flashed the images of a youthful Garcia running up the fairway after his shot heard round the world in '99, I instinctively got posessive of my Garcia cultural memories and history: I've spent the last eight years suffering as this guy's fan, don't let these other suckers in for free!
Ha! Welcome to my world, suckers. Oh sure, Garcia taunted us with his win at the TPC this spring, taking everyman Paul Goydos to overtime and then finishing him off with his iron play. But it is always Garcia's putting that keeps him out of the winner's circle, and even after his inexplicable water shot on #16, Garcia had a chance to stay in it with his flatstick on #17, and he gacked. And then he fumed about it. "Not disappointed"? Oh, puh-leeze. I'm betting that Garcia would happily trade in all of his wins and most of his money for one major win. Just one.
Padraig Harrington has won only five times on the PGA Tour, and three of them have been majors. Harrington is instantly classic, a giant and a giant-killer within the space of fourteen months. Two of his major wins have come gainst Sergio Garcia, both of them won down the stretch, and he deserves a lot of credit for gutting it out for the win. Padraig's putt on #16 for par was the epitome of courage on the golf course. His birdie putt on #17 was the final sword in the bull he'd been taunting all day.
I'm just p1ssed that I've been rooting for that bull, I've seen enough bullfights to know better. But that "new" bullfighter in the ring? That guy can play. Just make sure you never listen to one of his post-round interviews, his voice doesn't match his game.
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