A bogey on the last hole prevented Sergio Garcia from finishing as the leader after the first day of the Oman Open, scoring for the Asian Tour, which began at Al Mouj Golf, the Greg Norman design in the port city of Muscat.
Sergio Garcia, results
García, in his second tournament after a three-month hiatus after undergoing surgery on the meniscus in his left knee, in which the weight ends in the turn, shone especially in the second part of the course, when he chained five birdies in six holes.
“I didn’t feel very comfortable with the swing on the first few holes, but then it started to work. The way the greens are firm and with this final wind, it’s something to be very happy about,” he told reporters. The 67 strokes were only surpassed by the Canadian Shin Yonggu (66), who emigrated to the country of the maple leaf when he was three years old from South Korea, who took advantage of the best conditions in the morning to play a round without bogeys.
A member of the LIV, the circuit promoted by Saudi Arabia, Sergio tries to take advantage of this type of tournament to score points for the world ranking. In addition to García, Eugenio López Chacarra also competes in the emirate tournament.
The man from Madrid signed the field par on the first day. He began playing golf at the age of 3 at the “Club de Campo del Mediterráneo”, where his father Victor was a teacher. At 12 he was already champion of his club, four years later he became the youngest player to pass the cut in an event of the European Tour, in the 1995 Turespaña Open Mediterranea.
This record was broken by amateur Jason Hark in the UBS Hong Kong Open . In the same year Garcìa becomes the youngest player to win the European Amateur Championship. In his amateur career he won everything: from the Topolino World Junior Championship (1994), to the European championship (1995), to the British Amateur (1998).
He turned pro in 1999 after winning the best amateur title at the Augusta Masters, reaching a hcp of +5.4 and an official match-play average of 32 wins and only one loss. In his first year as a pro, he immediately stood out with a spectacular head-to-head with Tiger Woods at the 1999 PGA Championship, where he performed his most famous shot: an intentional slice from behind a tree with the ball going into the green and García running and jumping to see it land.
García has always been one of the strongest tee-to-green players, with a very distinctive swing. He is one of the pillars of the European Ryder Cup team, in which he has 6 victories (2002, 2004, 2006, 2012, 2014, 2018) in 9 participations and has set the record of youngest participant in the tournament (in 1999 edition).
source: tennisworldusa
