Sergio Garcia caused his own drama in match with Matt Kuchar

Sergio Garcia let his temper get the best of him several times in his match with Matt Kuchar on Saturday, causing unneeded drama and likely leading to his elimination from the WGC-Dell Match Play.

Sergio Garcia had a tough run in his Saturday afternoon “Elite Eight” match against Matt Kuchar at the WGC-Dell Match Play. He found himself three-down by the turn, making three bogeys and a double in a five-hole stretch. He fought back well on the back nine to make a real match of it, but unfortunately what he’ll be remembered for this week will be mental errors and a few outbursts of anger that likely cost him any chance he had to advance.

The first major mistake – and the one that directly cost Garcia a hole – came on the seventh green. Kuchar had already made bogey 4 on the hole, and Garcia was lining up a par putt that could have squared the match.

Then, this happened.

The replay in the tweet above is slowed down a bit from the real-time footage, but it pretty much speaks for itself. Garcia missed the par putt, then half-heartedly backhanded the ball back towards the hole. When it lipped out on that attempt, he picked it up. However, Kuchar had never formally acknowledged that he was conceding the hole. That’s when all hell broke loose.

The facts of this issue aren’t disputed by anybody involved. Kuchar had already walked to the back of the green after making his putt, and when he looked back, he saw Garcia miss the par putt. Then – without saying or doing anything – he saw Garcia miss the comeback.

"“I made my putt, walked to the back of the green. Sergio, I saw, missed it,” Kuchar told media after the round. “As I looked up again, I saw he had missed the next one. I saw him off the green, and said, ‘Sergio, I didn’t say anything. I’m not sure how this works out.’ I didn’t want that to be an issue, so I asked (the official). I said, ‘Listen, I don’t know how to handle this. I didn’t concede the putt. Sergio missed the putt.’"

This is where things get good. Kuchar said that he asked the official if he could concede the putt, as that was what he said he wanted to do anyway. The official told him that wasn’t possible after Garcia made the stroke, and Kuchar won the hole to go 2-up. Garcia, at some point, said that Kuchar could concede a later hole to “even” the score. Kuchar, understandably, declined that option, as the match was still both early and close.

Social media immediately split into two very distinct camps. The side backing Kuchar (admittedly the camp I fall into in this particular case) believed that Garcia should have been more careful about carelessly hitting a ball when he had not confirmed the concession. Even a glance in Kuchar’s direction and a quick nod would have done the job. But the frustration of a narrowly missed winner clouded that simple process, and whatever happened after was brought on himself.

Then there’s the Garcia camp. This one seemed to be largely made up of European fans and those who have made Tucan-gate (couldn’t help myself) the situation that proves that Kuchar’s good-guy image is just a sham. The prevailing belief there is that Kuchar should have been more active in his concession, and that he either knowingly made this move as gamesmanship, or at the very least violated the “spirit” of the game by not conceding the next hole.

There’s some meat here, to be fair, but I still believe that it’s on the player hitting the ball to know exactly what they’re doing when they make that stroke. Sergio Garcia is a veteran just as Kuchar is, and this isn’t his first Match Play rodeo. He also allowed his anger to boil over on the eighth green, making an angry swipe with his putter after a near miss, and then onto the 10th fairway, where Jim “Bones” Mackay believed an animated exchange included Garcia asking for the concession of a hole.

At the end of the day, whichever side you fall on, the reality is that Sergio Garcia brought this one entirely on himself. Between making sure that the hole had been conceded, to not making the halfhearted, backhanded comebacker, to just not letting it sit with him for several holes after the incident originally happened.

Sergio has always worn his heart on his sleeve, and while it’s what makes many of his fans love him, it also has a tendency of blowing up in his face. That’s what happened again on Saturday, and it might be why he’s not playing on Sunday.

Both men have endured their share of drama this year. Sergio Garcia was disqualified from the controversial Saudi International after fellow competitors complained of him damaging as many as five greens, and Kuchar came under heavy scrutiny for a low payment to local caddie David “El Tucan” Ortiz following the Mayakoba Golf Classic. The two made amends in person at the WGC Mexico Championship last month.