[Picture: Patrick Smith]
Sergio Garcia has withdrawn from this week’s Irish Open, telling a publication that he would be unable to be fully engaged after missing out on a captain’s pick for the European Ryder Cup.
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In an interview with GolfMagic, Garcia said he decided to pull out of the DP World Tour event at the K Club following a disappointing call from European captain Luke Donald that the Spaniard would not be part of the club. “I felt like I was so looking forward to being a part of that team, and so I felt like mentally, you know, mentally it was kind of tough,” Garcia told GolfMagic. “I didn’t want to go there and not be fully engaged in the tournament and stuff, so I just decided to take a little bit of time off and spend it with the family and do a couple of things, you know, some things outside of golf and just kind of reboot a little bit, recharge the batteries.”
Garcia, 45, is the all-time leading points winner for the European team. However, he was not widely considered a contender for a captain’s selection heading into Donald’s Monday announcement. The former Masters champion’s best major finish this year was a T-34 at the Open. He did win a LIV Golf event in Hong Kong in March, yet posted just one top-10 finish in his last eight starts in the limited-field Saudi league.
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Moreover, Garcia has a somewhat complicated relationship with DP World Tour brass. In April 2023, the DP World Tour won its legal battle against LIV Golf, with a UK arbitration panel upholding the former European Tour’s conflicting tournament release regulation and its ability to sanction members who breached it. A month later, the DP World Tour released a statement that 16 of the 17 players who left for LIV had paid fines levied against them, with the tour calling out the lone player who had not. “Sergio Garcia has not paid his £100,000 fine, nor has he given any indication that he intends to,” read the statement. “We will therefore take appropriate action if he continues not to respect the Sport Resolutions panel’s decision.”
In that same May statement, the DP World Tour announced Garcia had resigned his tour membership.
The Telegraph reported later that year that Garcia offered to make good on paying his fine for defecting to LIV Golf plus all other outstanding DP World Tour fines he owed, a total reportedly in the vicinity of £700,000, in hopes of becoming eligible to play for the European team that would compete in Rome. The story said that DP World Tour officials turned down the plea from Garcia because he resigned his tour membership, which disqualified him from being eligible for the European team, and that he could not regain his membership in time for the match. Despite being left off the team, Garcia said the conversation with Donald was “fine.” “Now, the only thing I can do is support the team from home,” Garcia told GolfMagic. “It’s as simple as that. I’ll be watching and cheering on the European team.”
The Ryder Cup begins September 26. The Europeans are the defending champs but have lost three of the last four matches contested on American soil.
