Sergio Garcia gives entirely different view on golf’s civil war

In the build-up to this year’s Masters, there has been a shared angst across both sides of golf’s divide.  

Rory McIlroy has urged the power-brokers to “put their egos aside” and create a unified global game or risk the sport remaining “fractured forever”.

Bryson DeChambeau, meanwhile, said that an end to the game’s civil war needs to “happen fast” because “too many people are losing interest.”

Uncertainty about the game’s future still reigns across the pristine fairways at Augusta National as the PGA Tour rushes to thrash out a definitive peace deal with the Saudi Public Investment Fund bankrolling LIV Golf, following 10 months of protracted talks.

• Jon Rahm struggles with regret as LIV fallout taints Masters defence

• Tiger Woods might disagree but he’s more ceremonial than contender

Sergio Garcia, though, seems to have taken an alternative stance on such a defining period.

The 2017 Masters champion is not concerned whatsoever about the unresolved deal and believes that the wider game is doing just fine.

“I think the game is in a perfect spot,” Garcia said ahead of his latest tilt for a second Green Jacket. “The professional game, maybe it’s a little more separated, mostly because of the media, not so much because of the players. But I think the game itself is in a great spot.

We’re coming for that green jacket @TheMasters pic.twitter.com/fr4kDxcnj7

— Sergio Garcia (@TheSergioGarcia) April 3, 2024

“I think that we have the most amount of people playing the game, which is great, and people have to realise one thing, that the future of the game isn’t us. We’re not the future of the game. Neither me or Rory, no. We’re not the future. We’re the present of the game.

“But the future of the game is those kids that are watching us play, that want to get into the game, that want to play and then maybe become professionals. I think that’s what sometimes people forget.”

• Jon Rahm struggles with regret as LIV fallout taints Masters defence

• Tiger Woods might disagree but he’s more ceremonial than contender

“I mean, obviously the more togetherness that you get, the better it is for everyone. There’s no doubt about that,” he said. “But there’s room for everyone. I don’t think that’s a problem at all.

“The same way that I love watching Real Madrid and La Liga, you like to watch the premiership and whoever your team is. Everybody can support whoever they have, and there’s plenty of people to support it.”

Garcia is one of 13 LIV golfers in the field this week and will yield hopes of a strong finish after losing out to South African Dean Burmester in a playoff at last week’s event in Miami.

But the Spaniard has once again dismissed any suggestions of friction across the rival domains at the first major of the season.

“You guys love these things. You keep building up these things, and there’s nothing,” he stressed. “There’s nothing. You guys love to kind of dig and just kind of try to make it sound like we get in the locker room and we’re fighting each other and stuff like that. It’s not like that. At the end of the day, it’s golf. We’re all trying to play the best way we can, and that’s it.”

Ben Parsons joined bunkered as a Content Producer in 2023 and is the man to come to for all of the latest news, across both the professional and amateur games. Formerly of The Mirror and Press Association, he is a member at Halifax Golf Club and is a long-suffering fan of both Manchester United and the Wales rugby team.