Top 20 Players to Watch in 2019: No. 16 Sergio Garcia

Sergio Garcia was one of the most disappointing players to watch on the PGA TOUR in 2018. However, don’t expect that slump to last into 2019 for the Spanish superstar.

It doesn’t seem like that long ago that Sergio Garcia was just a teenager – and the hottest prospect in golf. The fact that this year will mark the 20th anniversary of his low amateur performance at the Masters is a little mind-blowing, isn’t it? And we can all remember that iconic shot of him sprinting up the fairway at the 1999 PGA Championship to see where his heroic blast from the base of a tree wound up.

What’s not quite as jarring is the fact that Garcia, now on the doorstep of his 39th birthday and with 34 professional victories under his belt, is still a relevant force on the global golf scene. The only real question these days is just how much he has left in the tank, and for that reason, he’s one of my top players to watch in 2019.

First, let’s address the proverbial elephant in the room. Sergio Garcia was, well…he was flat-out awful in 2018, by his standards at least. He missed eight of 15 cuts on the PGA TOUR last year, including missing the cut in all four majors. It was the first time in his career he missed more than two major cuts in a season, and it extended his streak to five major cuts in a row dating back to the 2017 PGA Championship.

He became a father in March of 2018, as he and his wife Angela welcomed a daughter, Azalea. It’s understandable – admirable, really – that Garcia’s family life took priority over his golf career for a time. Frankly, I think more top-level athletes should be celebrated for that than they are currently. However, even as he returned, the results largely failed to live up to his lofty standards.

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That’s not to say the year didn’t have its high points, to be fair. Garcia shot a Sunday 65 at the Valspar Championship in March, just days before his daughter’s birth, to finish two behind winner Paul Casey (with a matching 65), and one stroke behind Patrick Reed and Tiger Woods. That would end up as his best American finish of the year. Two weeks later, he qualified for the Round of 16 at the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play, before falling to Kyle Stanley 3&1.

The lasting image many of us will have of Garcia’s 2018 campaign will be that dreadful 13 he shot on No. 15 at Augusta, but lost in the mix is the fact that he’s been on quite the upswing in the later part of the year.

At the time of this writing, Garcia has strung together six consecutive top-25 finishes worldwide, and five straight top-tens in European Tour-sanctioned events. He won the Andalucia Valderrama Masters – hosted by his foundation – for the third consecutive time, this time with a four-shot margin over Shane Lowry. He finished second at the Nedbank Golf Challenge, and he ended his European Tour season with a T-9 finish at the DP World Tour Championship. For all his struggles, he finished the Race to Dubai in 18th place overall.

While it was certainly difficult at times this year, I’m simply not ready to give up on Sergio Garcia yet. He’s proven that he’s still capable of brilliant golf, even if he still must deal with many of the same life challenges as the rest of us. It’s refreshing in a way, really.

I’m expecting Garcia to set out on a mission in 2019 to prove that this past season was little more than a blip on the radar. And if he brings any of his recent form to the PGA TOUR slate, nobody will be overlooking him for much longer.