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PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. -- Anybody know the Spanish translation for mojo?
Sergio Garcia is seeking it.
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| Sergio Garcia rolls a putt on the 18th green at TPC Sawgrass. (AP) |
In fact, a player who has never been one for reflection or backward glances over his shoulder is looking to the rear in an attempt to recapture his former glory.
A few weeks back, Garcia reached into his growing bag of short-stick rejects and pulled out a putter he used in 2000, back when he had been cast as the likely successor to the dominance of Tiger Woods.
It obviously hasn't worked out that way, exactly, thanks in great measure to his oft-chronicled skirmishes with his putter. Finally, Garcia recently reverted to an old friend, seeking to squeeze a few more moments of magic from it.
"Just trying to get those good sensations from the past when I was comfortable with my putting," he said.
Garcia was sensational and then some Thursday, when he fired a flashback 6-under 66 to take the first-round lead in the Players Championship at daunting TPC Sawgrass.
Both time and a player's reputation can pass quickly on the tour, and it feels like forever since Garcia was a steady threat at meaningful events. Over the recent past, has there been a household name who, at age 28, has seemed older with regard to battles scars and a scorched soul?
"I think it's no secret to anybody that he's been struggling with his putting for a little while, but as soon as he gets it right, we all know he's going to be winning," said Ian Poulter, Garcia's former Ryder Cup teammate. "I know he's working hard, and I'm sure he'll be in the winner's circle as soon as he gets it right. It may be this week."
Such a result would be both popular and largely unexpected. It has been such a long dark stretch -- three years to be exact -- since Garcia last won on either the European or PGA circuits that he's now considered more of an oddity than a prodigy.
Watching Garcia putt over the past few seasons has been like going to a NASCAR track and waiting for the crash. It's pretty darned likely it's going to happen, and when it does for Garcia, a HANS device isn't going to stop the hurt.
Once a player who putted with little fear, Garcia had grown so technical with his stroke, you could almost see him going down a mental checklist: Toes parallel to the ball, eyes positioned properly, shoulders square, left-hand grip firm but loose, putter perpendicular to the hole ... and the ball often missed the hole completely anyway.
You could palpably sense the tension and desperation. Outside of his solid performance last summer at the British Open, it became especially frightful when he was in contention and the stakes were raised. Garcia became the king of the irrelevant closing runs, like when he shot 67-66 on the weekend last year at Sawgrass to finish a backdoor second, even though he was never remotely in contention. When the pressure was on, like at Sawgrass in 2006, he shot a closing 78 after starting the final round one stroke behind eventual winner Stephen Ames.
Two months ago at the Accenture Match Play Championship, he hired former tour player Stan Utley, who has become increasingly popular for his short-game and putting prowess. Whether the results have improved isn't borne out in his results or statistics, per se, but between the ears, Garcia seems less skittish.
That in itself is a marked change.
"When I talked to Stan, our main idea was to get back to the way I used to putt, like 10, 12 years ago when I was a good putter," said Garcia, who is ranked No. 18 in the world.
That statement speaks volumes about his state of mind. He knows his putting has been three counties south of poor, and he knows we know it, too.
"You know, I really like the way I'm striking it, or stroking it," he said after the round, sounding very much like he meant it. "I'm pretty happy with everything that's going on.
"There are days that are better than others. The good thing is that there are days that it's very good, so that's always something to look forward to."
A good round at Sawgrass had to do wonders for Garcia's confidence. Given the two closing rounds he posted on the weekend last year, he's a combined 17 under over his past 54 holes on the notoriously fickle Pete Dye layout.
Garcia feels that while his putting issues are not cured, at least it's not utterly undermining an otherwise superior effort.
"At least now I have some rounds where I come out and say I actually shot what I should have shot, and not come out and think, I should have been four or five shots better, which is always not very nice," he said.
Perhaps his lone wobble was when he three-jacked his 17th hole of the day, then birdied 18th from five feet.
Perhaps with some continued improvement, his putting will transition from pitiable to laughable. By that, I mean something Garcia can eventually laugh about. Two weeks ago, when Garcia showed up in Dallas with a goatee, CBS analyst David Feherty cracked that Garcia was hoping his "putter wouldn't recognize him."
Already in his 10th year as a pro, he remains a work in progress -- if not, in golf lingo, ground under repair.
"I guess when we started, there were a lot of things to work on," he said of his work with Utley. "Now there's a little less things to work on, because it keeps getting better every day."