The Week: Serg of Optimism

García's victory is a positive sign for the 2002 season

By Alan Shipnuck

Sergio García   Jim Gund GOLF PLUS EXTRA My Shot: Wally Uihlein TRUST ME Phil Mickelson may have looked like a prima donna for skipping the Mercedes, but he'll turn out to have been a trendsetter. This faraway event has become golf's version of the All-Star Game -- more of an obligation than a privilege for the game's elite. NEXT UP PGA: Sony Open in Hawaii European: South African Open INSTANT POLL Will you play a hot driver knowing that it will later be deemed nonconforming? Yes No View Results

Last year's most hotly anticipated event, the Ryder Cup, was postponed due to the events of Sept. 11, while the glitzy American Express Championship was canceled. Robbed of these finishing flourishes, the final 3 1/2 months of 2001 were flatter than a flute of day-old champagne. Some of the Mercedes' themes may have been eerily familiar -- Tiger Woods was lackluster, and Phil Mickelson was lacking altogether -- but the resolution of the new year's first tournament left a bubbly feeling, thanks to the reappearance of golf's hottest players.

With his stirring sudden-death victory, Sergio García won his third Tour event since May, a number equaled only by David Toms, the man García vanquished with a birdie on the first extra hole at Kapalua's Plantation course on Maui, Hawaii. "You can't dream of a better way to start the year," García said, speaking for all of us.

For García, the Mercedes was the latest milestone in his remarkable maturation. His numbers last year -- sixth on the money list, third in scoring average -- tell only part of the tale. With his buggy-whip swing and endless fidgeting, García will never be mistaken for one of the game's premier technicians, but he surely has become golf's greatest showman. If Woods's calling card is the machinelike blowout, García channels the artistry and hot-blooded bravado of the toreador. His last four victories have been thrilling mano a manos, during which he has slain a quartet of the game's elite: Mickelson at the Colonial (with a final-round 63), Retief Goosen at the Trophée Lancôme (a comeback from four strokes down with four holes to play), Ernie Els at the Nedbank Golf Challenge (a sudden-death chip-in), and now Toms.

García's New Year's resolution was to become the first man to lead the money list on both the U.S. and European tours, and this goal suddenly seems like more than the bluster of youth. García has long relied on a robust long game, and the key blow in his final-round 64 at Kapalua was a mighty three-wood that set up a pivotal eagle on the 9th hole. But García has developed into a polished all-around player. Amidst ever-changing gales he masterfully controlled the trajectory of his irons while playing an artful variety of shots, and he reaffirmed on Sunday that no one putts better in the clutch.

García's third Tour victory was worth $720,000. "I'm leading the money list right now," he says.

García turned 22 on Wednesday. By his 22nd birthday Woods had six Tour victories, including the 1997 Masters. A year ago it was easy to believe that Woods was twice as good as García, but the gap is narrowing. García's development could be the story of 2002, a season that's but one week old, yet already full of intrigue.

O.B.

First he takes the advice to lay up, now this: Over the off-season David Toms presented his caddie, Scott Gneiser , with the keys to a midnight-blue 2001 Porsche Boxster, a car Toms had originally purchased for himself. "It was kind of a year-end bonus," says Toms. "He wanted the car, and I didn't." ...

Last Friday, 48 hours after one of Michelle McGann's former caddies had been released from a Palm Beach County, Fla., jail for allegedly stalking her, the LPGA veteran spoke to SI about the ordeal: "There are a lot of crazy people out there," said McGann. "This is something that goes along with being in the public eye, I guess." Patrick Hallett, a 42-year-old resident of Monterey, Calif., caddied for McGann only once, in 1989, her rookie year. McGann says Hallett began sending her innocent correspondence in the mid-'90s, but in November the letters took a darker turn. "All of sudden it was like, 'I love you, I want to marry you, I can't be without you.' I was freaking out." Freed on a $1,000 bond on Jan. 2, Hallett was served with a temporary restraining order compelling him to stay at least 500 feet from McGann and places that she frequents. ...

Think Tom Pernice is uptight? A God-fearing former economics major who lists gardening as a hobby, Pernice, 42, showed up for a New Year's Eve bash at the Mercedes Championships wearing a dark coat and tie, while Hawaiian shirts were the standard attire. ...

David Feherty 's first novel, A Nasty Bit of Rough, will be published in March. In this tall tale Uncle Dickie -- protagonist of many of Feherty's columns in Golf Magazine -- wages an epic struggle to claim golf's oldest trophy, the petrified middle finger of St. Andrew. ...

So where was Phil last week? Turns out the AWOL Mr. Mickelson rang in the New Year with his in-laws in Utah. Then, while his colleagues were battling the elements in Maui, Mickelson was tuning up his game amid the computerized sterility of the Titleist test center in Carlsbad, Calif., a quick drive from his new manse in Rancho Santa Fe.

Issue date: January 14, 2002