Sergio Garcia has won the Masters for the first time after an exciting tiebreak with British Olympic champion Justin Rose in the first hole of the playoff. The victory gives him the honor of wearing the prestigious green jacket, a replica of the Masters clubhouse trophy to keep, a gold medal and a prize of $1.98 million dollars.
For Garcia, without a doubt, it’s the peak of a career that has had its ups and downs and one in which he has been unjustly criticized by the press for not fulfilling, what in its beginnings, seemed as a very promising career.
Garcia has won his first major in 74 tries on a very special date, the birthday of Severiano Ballesteros, the legendary Spaniard that won the Masters in 1980 and 1983 and passed away in 2011 at the age of 54. He would have been sixty years old.
Garcia’s triumph places him among the biggest players in the history of golf. The 37-year-old Valencian is the third Spaniard to win the Masters, after Jose Maria Olazabal (1994, 1999) and Ballesteros.
Garcia, eleventh in the world ranking, had the victory in his hands at the 18th hole during regulation play, however, a miss from only five feet away forced a tiebreak against Rose.
Fortunately, a mistake by the Briton in the first hole of the playoff guaranteed the Spaniard his first green jacket and his first major victory.
Garcia’s win came in his eighteenth appearance at the Masters, an event he won as an amateur in 1999, the year Olazabal put on his green jacket for the second time.
Garcia has won 33 tournaments throughout his career, 10 of them on the PGA Tour, where he has won prizes totaling 46.2 million dollars. The Spaniard was until now the golfer with more earnings in his career without having gained a major tournament.
Garcia gets to keep his jacket for a year, but after that he must return it to the club, where he will be able to use it anytime he’s on the premises. He’s then given a replica jacket that he gets to take home.
