Sergio Garcia is doing something very strange when he putts…

Sergio Garcia is never going to be remembered as one of the game’s greatest putters.

As phenomenally good as he has been from tee to green, the Spaniard has been consistently inconsistent on the dancefloor itself. 

It has been his Achilles’ heel throughout his career and is a large part of the reason why he he hasn’t won more often, particularly in the majors where the 2017 Masters remains his sole win to date. 

He’s tried various different things to improve his fortunes, from anchoring (before it was banned) to changing his grip to changing his putter many, many times.

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Now, though, it transpires that he has been something particularly surprising for the last three years – putting with his eyes CLOSED.

Garcia, 40, has roared into contention at this week’s Sanderson Farms Championship at the County Club of Jackson with the unusual technique. TV cameras caught him rolling in a lengthy birdie putt early in his second round with his eyes shut and, afterwards, he detailed the method behind this apparent madness.

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“Would you believe me if I told you I’ve been doing it for about three years?” Garcia asked reporters.

“Augusta, I won it playing with my eyes closed every single putt and some of the other wins, too. I feel like it gives me a little more freedom to feel the stroke. Sometimes, we get too focused on trying to make it perfect and kind of following with the eyes and everything. So, this way I feel like I just feel it and I just let my natural ability kind of take over instead of telling myself what to do.”

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One of Garcia’s most famous shots, of course, came with his eyes closed, when he hit an incredible approach from the roots of a tree down the stretch in the 1999 US PGA Championship. This, however, is taking shut-eye to an extreme.

“At the end of the day, you’ve just got to keep working on it,” he added. “You’ve got to go with it and trust it, believe it. You might have a week here and there where you don’t putt as well but I think that I’m at the point where I need to.

“I talked to my wife, Angela, about it, and I have to stick to something and go with it no matter what. I’m in a stage of my career where I can’t be jumping back and forth too much because then I get no rhythm whatsoever.”

This week, at least, it appears to be working. Garcia is currently T7 on eight-under-par through 36 holes, just five shots adrift of leader Keegan Bradley.