Paspalum Dynasty: Players Acknowledge Sergio's "Not Normal" "Tantrum"
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Brian Keogh unearths additional details for The Independent and in a separate piece, offers a very PG-rated translation of Sergio Garcia’s rantings from the Royal Greens bunker.
There was an apology told to Spanish news agency EFE “shortly after his disqualification” reports Keogh.
“What happened this week is not something I am proud of,” Garcia told the Spanish news agency EFE shortly after his disqualification.
“We are all human, and we all make mistakes, but the important thing is to learn from them. The mistake is not learning from mistakes.”
So there is a chance you could make a mistake on top of the mistake you’ve already made if you don’t learn from this mistake. Got it.
Of more interest are the details filling in names of some players and caddies who turned Garcia in for vandalizing Royal Greens’ “Paspalum Dynasty” greens on top of names like Robert Rock and Patrick Reed who already acknowledged they saw the Spaniard’s efforts to deface the greens.
His antics in round three included leaving scuff marks and a divot on five greens as he played alongside the young Italian Renato Paratore, whose caddie felt Garcia’s tantrum was excessively prolonged.
According to EFE, Paratore’s Spanish caddie Javier Erviti said: “We are used to shows of character because we are Latinos, but we had the impression this tantrum was a bit over the top.”
Compatriot Jorge Campillo and his caddie Borja Simo, who were two groups behind Garcia and Paratore, called rules officials when they spotted deliberate damage to several greens.
“We knew it could affect us and the groups behind us,” Simo told EFE.
Campillo added: “It could happen once to any of us but several times is not normal.”
At the end of the round, tournament director David Phillips was waiting for Garcia, armed with an electronic tablet and showed him the photos.
So we have more confirmation that the European Tour has a file documenting the damage but it seems the chances are slim we’ll ever see them.
We discussed the situation on Morning Drive:
