Sergio Garcia’s behavior at Augusta National during the final round of The Masters on Sunday was quite simply unacceptable.
There is no way of sugar-coating it – Garcia let himself down at The Masters, badly.
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The 46-year-old Spaniard ended up finishing third last out of the players who made the cut at Augusta National.
While Garcia was a complete non-entity at The Masters as far as his golf was concerned, he hit the headlines after his shocking behavior on the second tee at Augusta National.
Sergio Garcia was reprimanded by Masters officials, and warned about his code of conduct on the golf course.
Photo by Augusta National/Augusta National/Getty Images
Was a warning enough, though? Or should authorities be doing more to crack down on the issue of poor player behavior?
Max Homa has given his take on the responsibility that professional golfers have when playing, with millions of impressionable youngsters watching on their TVs.
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Max Homa’s opinion on player behavior after Sergio Garcia’s Masters controversy
Homa spoke to reporters on Wednesday ahead of the start of the RBC Heritage on Thursday.
And he responded when asked to give his opinion on poor behavior from certain golfers during their rounds.
“I have a very bad — I say a lot of bad words,“ Homa admitted.
“I very much try to do it not when a kid can hear. So I do think there’s some, hey, don’t say it in front of the wrong person, like be a bit aware of your surroundings. Not saying I’ve never done it. I don’t like when people break clubs. I don’t like when people beat up the golf course because we deal with it, and I think breaking clubs makes us look very, very spoiled.
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“I try my absolute best not to do it, and when it does happen, as far as slamming a tee box, I’m very upset with myself because we’re very lucky to play this game where we do, and I think it is a bad look.
But again, this is a very frustrating game, and it happens.
Photo by Andrew Redington/Getty Images
“I don’t know where I’d draw that line exactly, but I definitely think beating up a golf course would be probably — because the rest of us have to play it. But that’s a tough thing to handle or to decide upon because it is so subjective. If I do something where no one is watching on TV, that gets graded a lot lower than when it’s in front of everybody. I don’t know how you would land that plane.
“But it’s never a bad thing to have that conversation being had at Augusta. That’s good. Between that and pace-of-play stuff, there’s things we can address, and we can wait until we figure it out until we implement it, but at least the conversation is going that way. We want to inspire the next generation to be better than us, so we need to be held to a higher standard.“
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Homa is absolutely correct with everything he has said there.
And Sergio Garcia would serve himself well to read his comments after his petulant display of child-like behavior at Augusta National last week.
Max Homa reveals when the turning point was for him
The 35-year-old Californian played some exceptional golf last week at The Masters, finishing inside the top 10.
Homa was asked by reporters on Wednesday when he believes the real turning point came for him after the struggles he has endured over the past few years.
“Right around — right when I went back to work with Mark (Blackburn) in October,“ he said.
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“I had been playing okay before that. I had just gotten — the swing path had gotten very outside and I’ve always liked to play a cut better, but I had gotten very, just fully cut biased, so we got a bit more neutral and spent a lot of time over the off-season kind of workshopping things.
“By the time January rolled around, I felt good. Hit it really, really well in Palm Springs and putted awfully, so that was a really good sign because I had a decent finish for making nothing.
“Then we changed my grip to a bit stronger around Waste Management and it was just a phenomenal two and a half days of prep, like was so excited.
“Then I got out there on the 11th hole, my second of the day, and there’s trouble left, and I think that was the day my grip started to get a little weaker because I was scared of hitting it left.
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“A lot of these practice rounds and rounds even have felt really good. Weird stuff has happened and I haven’t trusted a lot of things, but then again at Augusta, Mark was like, I think we need to revisit this grip, and that is definitely — he’s definitely on to it.
“It’s always a bit of a — there’s steps to how it comes back. But like I said, around fall I knew it was good. I could play golf. It just was a little — you get a little handcuffed on a left-to-right wind when you’re that out-to-in.“
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