SERGIO GARCIA FIRES 66 DESPITE INFECTED FINGER

By mustang6560 on 5/27/11

OK. So an infected finger nail is not the most manly sounding injury one could have. It's no strained medial collateral ligament but it's painful nonetheless.

Despite the nail infection that forced him to withdraw from The Open qualifier on Monday, Sergio Garcia opened with a 4-under 66 at the HP Byron Nelson Championship. He admitted in his post round presser yesterday that he didn't think he was going to be able to play this weekend at TPC Four Seasons.

On Tuesday there was -- on Tuesday I didn't think I had a chance of playing. It was so sore I just -- I thought there was no chance. But we worked on it on Tuesday, they gave me some antibiotic cream, and I kept putting on that cream and taking the antibiotics. Yesterday it was sore. If yesterday was the first round, I probably could have forced it, but we didn't want to do it in the Pro-Am and having to pull out, and the good thing now is it felt good.

Obviously I didn't need to hit any shots that hurt it and it's just -- it's not a bother, so it's good.

It's a good thing his finger was OK to go for the Nelson because he is playing for more than just another PGA Title, he's trying to qualify for The Open at Royal St. George's in July. Sergio's streak of playing in 47 consecutive majors is in jeopardy and he running out of ways to qualify. He was asked yesterday if he felt a sense of urgency to qualify and he said:

There is no urgency at all. If I get to the U.S. Open, I'll be happy as Larry; if I don't, I'll go back home. At the end of the day, it's not the end of the world if for whatever reason I happen not to qualify for the U.S. Open.

I would love to be in it, but if I don't, I'm not going to go home and start crying. Hopefully there are many more years of U.S. Open to come to play. Definitely I'm going to be trying hard to get in it.

Who's Larry and why is he so darn happy all the time?

I don't buy that fact that Sergio feels "no sense of urgency" to qualify for the British Open. He admitted it's his favorite tournament so how could you not want to play it? I hope Sergio is able to put together a few good rounds this week and win his way into the British Open.



Sergio's Post Round Interview

photo by Keith Allison

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