Sergio Garcia shot himself into Masters contention with a second-round 68 on Friday but warned against any temptation to bet on him winning his first Major at the tournament on Sunday.
Tucked in nicely near the top of the halfway leaderboard at four-under 140, the 32-year-old Spaniard strangely looked far from contented as he addressed his post-round press conference.
“I don’t know if I’m ready to win. I’ll see. We’ll see. Depends how I play tomorrow, and then it depends how I go out there on Sunday and how I play,” he said with a shrug of the shoulders when asked if he thought he could win.
“I wish I could tell you I’m ready to win, but I really don’t know. So I’m just going to give it my best try, and you know, hopefully that will be good.”
Part of the problem stems mainly from Garcia’s well-documented disdain for the sequence of changes made to the Augusta National course over the last decade, especially the lengthening of the course and the addition of more trees.
He admits to feeling very uncomfortable on several holes and says he just wants to play them and get them over with as quickly as possible.
Testimony to that is his own record here, which shows just two top-10 finishes in 13 Masters attempts and a record over the last five years of: missed cut, missed cut, tie for 38th, tie for 45th and tie for 35th.
“I think it’s just an amazing place. Obviously it would be nice to play with good weather and play the course the way it’s supposed to play, firm, kind of firm greens and things like that,” he said.
“Unfortunately it feels like since they made all the changes just after 1999, we have not been able to really play that way. I don’t know why. It’s just unfortunate.
“The Masters before all the changes, it was mainly about the approach shots to the greens and everything around the greens and on the greens.
“Now, you have to drive the ball. If you don’t drive the ball here, you are out of position. The fairways have gotten very narrow. There’s a lot of trees around that didn’t used to be there. And it just becomes very, very difficult.”
Adding to Garcia’s discomfort was the cold Georgia spring weather that he experienced over the first two rounds played on Thursday evening and Friday morning and an infected fingernail on his left hand that bleeds as he plays his round.
“It’s obviously a little uncomfortable,” he said.
“I think early on the day, it’s worse. Then as the round goes on it probably opens up a little bit with the inflammation.
“I had it last year on a different finger at the qualifying for the British Open when I had to pull out.
“I guess the good thing about this one is it’s more in the middle one, so I don’t need to use it as much more grip pressure.”
