A Sergio Garcia sand trap temper tantrum preceded his DQ for damaging greens

No one in sports had a rougher weekend than Sergio Garcia, including Jared Goff. The Spaniard suffered an unprecedented meltdown at the European Tour’s Saudi International, where he was disqualified on Saturday for damaging at least five greens. Players from at least four groups playing behind Sergio complained about damage up on the greens as they rolled through in their third round, eventually leading to Euro Tour CEO Keith Pelley getting involved during play.

Garcia did not deny the actions and accepted a DQ for the rarely invoked “serious misconduct” rule. He released this limp apology that’s not quite accurate, citing damage to just a “couple” greens. “I respect the decision of my disqualification. In frustration, I damaged a couple of greens, for which I apologize, and I have informed my fellow players that it will never happen again.”

Video of Sergio committing these golf crimes has been buried, or does not exist. According to Martin Dempster of The Scotsman, Garcia allegedly dragged the sole of his golf shoes across multiple greens (this rips and pulls up the turf) and took out a divot on one. I choose to believe it’s being buried because, well, that would be a bad look for everyone involved. The European Tour does not want video of one its Hall-of-Fame players and legends losing it with actions that no one can seem to recall ever happening at the professional level. Sergio obviously does not want this out there and maybe rights holders would prefer to have one their stars not embarrassed with the tapes. Or maybe the cameras just were not rolling, but that’s harder to accept given the ubiquitous world feed coverage on the Euro Tour.

Prior to the DQ damage, however, Garcia was seen in the second round throwing a fit in a bunker. This was not merely a slamming of the club in frustration, which we often see in professional golf and in bunkers. This was a full-on unhinged temper tantrum you never see, especially not from a 39-year-old major champion at some low stakes January event. Fortunately, Geoff Shackelford unearthed the video of from the Friday incident.

Sergio is apparently erupting about how the bunker had been raked by a caddie in some prior group that played the hole. The shot, all in all, was not that bad! It got up and on the green and doesn’t look that far from the target. But still, at the pro level, these guys expect perfectly raked bunkers and tend to get upset when that standard is not met.

Getting upset is one thing, but this sustained outburst is bizarre. It’s also quite enjoyable to watch from the fan’s perspective because, holy s**t he’s maaaaad.

Sergio has a history of outbursts both off and on the course. We thought we were past that. We had to hear the treacly stuff about how he’d matured and found peace and was now a dad and all that stuff. You might see this from a frustrated 16-year-old in some high school event, where he’d probably be benched or pulled off the course by a coach or parent. But not from a 20-year-veteran at the professional level.

Even with his history, this tantrum combined with the “serious misconduct” of Saturday is next level stuff for Sergio. It’s next level really for anyone in the pro game. We just don’t see sustained anger like this. Slamming a club or maybe hauling off on a single green is one thing, but to stay at that level of anger for that long at this stage of a career is beyond the pale. It’s a victimless crime, although the players behind him playing the damaged greens would disagree, but this is golf and this is just about as extreme as it gets.

Shackelford argued for a one-year ban on the European Tour, and that seems commensurate to me based on what we know so far. The problem with a Euro Tour ban is that Sergio will just play over in the States on the PGA Tour and his status at the majors would be unaffected, unless all those organizations also joined and banned him for something that happened under another ruling body. So the European Tour, which is already in a position of weakness and is desperate to have high-profile players patronize their events, is in a tight spot and Dempster reported that there would be no further action.

There is clearly something going on with Sergio. We know he can be temperamental but this is so far beyond what’s acceptable in golf. Now we’ll wait for video or further details from Sergio and the Euro Tour on the greens-damaging tantrum. But this is a player with a history of doing and saying things that should have ostracized him from the game long before this outburst, which should also put him in timeout for an extended period in 2019.