April 14 (Reuters) – Former Masters champion Sergio Garcia apologised on Tuesday for his conduct during the final round of golf’s first major, after he smashed and broke his driver in a fit of frustration at the second tee.
Paired with fellow Spaniard Jon Rahm, Garcia slammed his club into the turf twice after hitting a shot that ended up in the fairway bunker on the par-five second hole at Augusta National.
Still incensed, he walked over to a nearby cooler and took a big swing at it, a whack that snapped the head off the shaft in the process.
“I want to apologize for my actions on Sunday at The Masters tournament,” Garcia said in a statement posted on X. “I respect and value everything that The Masters and Augusta National Golf Club is to Golf.
“I regret the way I acted and it has no place in our game. It doesn’t reflect the respect and appreciation I have for The Masters, the patrons, tournament officials and golf fans around the world.”
Because the club was damaged out of anger, Garcia was unable to replace it, leaving him without a driver for the rest of the round. He posted a three-over-par 75 to finish the week at eight over, third from last among the 54 players who made the cut.
The 46-year-old Garcia was spoken to by a Masters official at the fourth hole and issued a code of conduct warning.
When speaking to reporters after the round, Garcia declined to say what the official told him and gave short answers when asked to explain his record at the year’s first major, where since his triumph he has missed the cut six of the eight times he has participated.
“Bad golf,” he said.
Garcia, who won the 2017 Masters, joined LIV Golf in 2022 and has two wins in the Saudi-funded circuit — at Andalucia in 2024 and Hong Kong in 2025.
In 2019, Garcia was disqualified from the Saudi International for “serious misconduct” after purposefully damaging several greens.
(Reporting by Frank Pingue in TorontoEditing by Christian Radnedge)
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