Of the hundreds of decisions Thomas Bjørn has had to make since he took on the captaincy two years ago, picking Sergio García was one of the riskiest. Not that Bjørn ever saw it that way. He has been on the same team as García in six Ryder Cups, as a teammate and a vice-captain. Now he was in charge, he knew he wanted him in his team, even if he had to use one of his wildcard picks to do it. The problem was, hardly anyone else seemed to agree with him.
García had been playing some poor stuff this summer, missing the cut in eight of his past 11 tournaments. But Bjørn was not worried about that. Instead it was the criticism that bothered him. To pick García, he has had to leave out men who were in better form, such as Rafa Cabrera-Bello and Matt Wallace. “I know people are going to wonder how much quality Sergio will bring on the course, I believe he will bring plenty but I also know what Sergio brings off the course. He’s right at the centre of it every single time.” García, Bjørn said, is “the one who will stand up in the middle of the room and who the others will listen to. He’s the one who will rally the troops.”
On Saturday, García proved Bjørn’s point. In the morning fourballs he brought plenty and more on the course in a superb partnership with Rory McIlroy. In the afternoon foursomes, he played as mentor and mate to Alex Norén as he struggled his way around the course.
At the end of it all, García had won one out of the two games. He and McIlroy beat Tony Finau and Brooks Koepka 2&1, then with Norén lost to Bubba Watson and Webb Simpson 3&2. The beauty of it was that García was so enthusiastic in both matches you would not have guessed there was any difference between the results.
“Sergio was so clutch,” said McIlroy. “I didn’t have my best stuff, but any time I didn’t hit a great shot Sergio was always on my shoulder with encouragement telling me to come on and it’s great to hear that from someone like him.
“His passion and fire for the Ryder Cup are second to none and it’s pretty infectious.”
By the time they made the 3rd they were really starting to spark off each other. They had to splash out of the sandtrap by the front right of the green. García’s shot was good, McIlroy’s spectacular. At the 4th McIlroy blew right into the rough, so it was García to win it by whistling in a brilliant, skimming, skipping second.
García was playing better than he has done all year long. At the 6th he dropped his wedge in 5ft away from the pin, but did not even need to finish it because McIlroy made his putt from twice the distance.
That kept happening. Two holes later, García hit his tee-shot at the par-three 8th to 10ft, but McIlroy rolled his in from three times as far. Inbetween the two, García made a fine long putt of his own, up to the very lip of the cup from 25ft, to earn a half after McIlroy had picked his ball up out of thick rough. The best of it, though, went down at the par-three 11th, after Finau had summoned up his best shot of the day, off the tee, over the water, five feet from the pin.
McIlroy fetched up down a bank, in rough, and chipping on to a downslope. He came within an inch of making the shot. Then García, riffing off McIlroy’s little bit of genius, made a vicious downhill putt from 12ft. So all of a sudden Finau was in a fix. He had to make that simple little putt just to keep up. And he missed it. That put García and McIIroy four up, so far ahead that they made the mistake of easing up in the home stretch until García finished it with another great putt at 17.
García tried to gee along Norén, too, just like he had McIlroy. But by the time Norén had his game together, the match was gone because Watson and Simpson strung together a run of five birdies in eight holes. As soon as it was over, García was already thinking about the singles. “We played great,” he fibbed. “Now we have to focus for tomorrow.”
There was one other thing Bjørn said back when he was talking about why he had picked García. “On Saturday night, when you’re four points ahead, Sergio is the one who will tell everyone: ‘This is not won yet.’ I believe that if we’re going to win against this American team, those are the characters we need.”
Four points is the lead Europe have now. If García wins , he will leapfrog Nick Faldo and become Europe’s all-time leading points-scorer. Whether he does or not, will, you guess, matter to him less than whether the team win.
