Why it’s worth taking the ride to see if old Garcia is gone

Sergio Garcia has had various reputations pegged on him over the course of his career. Exciting young talent, potential world number one, Ryder Cup lynchpin, yip sufferer and grump have all applied. Multi-major winner has never been one of them.

Perhaps the one character trait the Spaniard would wish for least is his knack for falling away in tournaments, often the ones that matter most, following strong starts.

Now 34, Garcia has once again given himself every chance of being in the mix for a maiden major title, at The Open Championship, with his second round 70 nicely dovetailing with his first-day 68 to leave him T3 on six-under-par.

There’s plenty of reason to believe in Sergio this year though, and his 16/1 tournament winner price is just one of them.

The Ryder Cup specialist recently declared himself the most happy he’s been off the course since 2008 and many attribute that to his surge in form which has seen him register eight top-25 finishes in his 10 PGA Tour starts this season.

As is typical with Garcia though, he’s yet to pick up a win this year and there’d be plenty of golf fans across the globe willing him on to break the duck at The Open Championship.

Arrears of six shots to Rory McIlroy heading into the third round naturally leaves the Castellon native with plenty to do to achieve it. But, should he stay the course, his ball striking and wildly improved putting makes him possibly the only man in the chasing pack able to reel in the Northern Irish leader.

The Open Championship is also Garcia’s favourite major, having registered more top 10s in Britain’s golden golf tournament than in the three held in the US.

Having once declared himself “not good enough” to ever win a major, Garcia could prove himself wrong this week.

All Odds and Markets are correct as of the date of publishing.

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