Sergio Garcia Distraught After Ryder Cup Snub, Drops Irish Open

Sergio Garcia, the winningest player in Ryder Cup history and a mainstay of the European team for two decades, won’t be part of the 12-man roster at Bethpage Black this month.

He was distraught over the snub to the extent he had to drop out of the Irish Open — a tournament he was eligible for only because the DP World Tour hasn’t banned LIV golfers outright. And apparently, a tournament he only wanted to use as Ryder Cup prep.

“I felt like I was so looking forward to being a part of that team, and so I felt like mentally, you know, mentally it was kind of tough (to play in the Irish Open),” Garcia told GolfMagic.

Oh, Sergio, buddy. You may have been the last person on earth to realize you weren’t making that Ryder Cup team.

“I didn’t want to go there and not be fully engaged in the tournament and stuff,” he said, “so I just decided to take a little bit of time off and spend it with the family and do a couple of things, you know, some things outside of golf and just kind of reboot a little bit, recharge the batteries.”

Yes, he needed a break from golf and accomplished that by playing 18 holes with tennis star Carlos Alcaraz instead. I bet he didn’t drive Alcaraz from Flushing Meadows out to Bethpage.

Let me take a moment to back up: I was a Sergio Garcia fan for most of my life. It was that sort of inexplicable fandom that develops in your formative years. You can’t break down what specific parts of a golfer’s game you enjoy at age 6. I did know, however, that Sergio was a really cool name, and you could say the same about Tiger, but where was the fun in rooting for a guy who won every single week?

So Garcia was the first favorite golfer I ever had, and I watched on edge as he let major after major slip out of his grasp. I watched when Garcia spat in the 13th hole at a tournament in ‘07, and thought something to the effect of, “... Well, that’s not great, but we all have our bad days.” As I grew up, I quietly enjoyed his long-overdue breakthrough at the 2017 Masters, and when he signed up for LIV Golf, I was unsurprised.

Back in the present day, Garcia has now missed consecutive Ryder Cups. Team Europe didn’t include any LIVers in 2023, but the rule quickly got modified when Jon Rahm bounced for LIV at the start of 2024. Garcia was therefore technically eligible for selection this year, as he paid his fines to get back in good standing with the DP World Tour.

Only thing is, why would captain Luke Donald make a massive change from the winning 2023 squad? When you combine his six captain’s picks with the six who automatically qualified, the 12 surnames are exactly the same. The only difference is Rasmus Hojgaard, who auto-qualified and takes the place of twin brother Nicolai.

No doubt Garcia has great history in match play. When you combine his Ryder Cup record with a green jacket and a Players Championship, it should lift him into the Hall of Fame, even if his personality throughout the years left many folks turned off. But it doesn’t grant him access to every Ryder Cup from now till forever.

Hm, why did Donald snub this 45-year-old man who didn’t crack the top 30 at a major this year and hadn’t finished top-five on LIV since April?

Garcia’s the only one still trying to figure it out.