Why Tiger was Wrong, Sergio was Right

Tiger wins but in the process exchanges some verbal blows with Sergio over an etiquette dispute, see why I think Tiger was wrong and Sergio was right, but not innocent.

Thrash TalkAs with most stories there are two sides to be told. This case is no different, especially since the two sides were separated by fifty yards. The scene of this controversy was The Players Championship in the delayed third round in the final pairing of Tiger Woods and Sergio Garcia.

On the second hole, Garcia, away and hitting his second shot in the fairway was distracted by the gallery that was gathered around Tiger’s drive in the left pine straw. Several seconds prior to Sergio’s swing, Tiger pulled his fairway wood out of this bag and the crowd reacted favorably to his choice to go for it. This favorable cheering distracted Sergio and caused him (his own words) to miss the ball way right into the trees on the right. Sergio bogeyed the hole.

I think in the aftermath Tiger had no idea that this had occurred until the press asked him about it later that day. Tiger went on to say that Sergio was “complaining” and insinuated that Sergio always complains. A verbal war of words went on from there, but that is not the main topic I want to discuss now.

Tiger said he had asked a marshal if Sergio had played, got an affirmative response, and went about his business. In watching the event on replay I cannot agree that is exactly how it went down. If you watch Tiger, he goes over to his bag and pulls out the fairway wood then points his finger in Sergio’s direction as if to ask has Sergio played. This shows me that he pulled the club before Sergio had hit and did not look or even care what Sergio was doing at the time. I have even seen recent stories where the marshal on the course states that he did not give Tiger the go-ahead, and later stories confirming that a marshal did give him the go-ahead, but one can never be sure what happened exactly with the marshal. Either way, marshals are not always on top of what is going on.

Tiger was wrong and didn’t want to admit that he had made a mistake. I have done what Tiger did very often in playing with my friends. If I were in the trees as he was, I will pull out the club I want to hit and start making rehearsal swings to see if the trees are going to affect my swing. Occasionally one of the other players in my group will wait and see if I am going to actually hit the ball or I am just checking. Basically Tiger and I are guilty of being in our own world and not paying attention to the other players in the group. There is a enormous difference between me and Tiger because there is no gallery following me around and reacting to me pulling a club.

What clouded this issue in my mind is the icy relationship between Tiger and Sergio. I think if this was John Doe Pro, Tiger likely would have apologized to him after mistake and this would have been a non-story. I think Tiger doesn’t like Sergio and therefore did not feel compelled to apologize and even stoked the fire by adding the complainer label to Sergio.

Tiger and Sergio

Some will argue that Sergio could have hit that shot even if there was no distraction, and even Sergio admitted that himself. Plus I have been to a few Tour events and it is rarely if ever dead quiet. There are people on other holes cheering birdies, yelling fore off tees all sorts of craziness and the player either backs off or plays through it. Sergio may have played the whole thing up a bit acting the victim more than he should have, but he was still in the right and should have gotten an apology.

I want to add, this event had little to do with the outcome. Tiger won fair and square and played the best. He deserved and did win. Sergio succumbed to the pressure of the theater of the seventeenth hole and lost the tournament there. I was a bit disappointed because I felt the tournament would have had a fitting end if Tiger and Sergio were in a playoff to decide the winner after all that had happened.

Too much time has passed now for Tiger to apologize. It would be awkward and contrived. The golf press may for a time look to get some additional mileage out of this story, but likely Sergio and Tiger have moved on. With both players playing at a very high level it may come to pass that they battle again and the press will have a field day with it.

Photo credits: © Richard Heathcote.

19 thoughts on “Why Tiger was Wrong, Sergio was Right”

  1. Tiger pulled his club between six and seven seconds before Sergio hit. It’s unlikely Tiger could see Sergio from where he was. PGA Tour pros pull clubs like Tiger did all the time. Yes, Tiger pointed vaguely to the right somewhere, but that’s not proof of much.

    And even if it is, here’s what it boils down to: Sergio is too much of a man-child, too passive aggressive, that he can’t even mention it to Tiger during the round, instead choosing to whine and – yes – complain to the press. Tiger first seems to be aware of a possible etiquette issue was when he was asked about Sergio’s comments by the press. Sergio may be young, but this hardly even ranks as high-school-level immaturity.

    It’s pretty difficult to apologize for something you didn’t know you did. Reverse the players in the situation and I still blame the guy who doesn’t even have the stones or or tries to play the game by not even telling the other player about the breach of etiquette.

  2. ^^ What Erik said.

    It takes a serious convoluted twist of the facts to affix any kind of blame on Tiger for this incident. What exactly is he supposed to be guilty of? Pulling a damn club out of his bag well before his partner had hit his shot when he was led to believe the partner had hit?

    Sergio is the villain of this situation because he blamed his poor shot on the noise from Tiger’s gallery. If it were virtually every other pro, they would have shrugged & said ‘Oh well…it happens sometimes.’

    But not Sergio. He, of course, never does anything wrong, and when he does it’s someone else’s fault.

  3. One thing I completely agree with Erik on is how Sergio handled the situation poorly. He played up the victim role and he did whine about it more than he should.

    @zipazoid You have to admit it was just more than pulling a club. It was the crowds reaction to the pulling of the club. Tiger has played in a lot of tournaments on the PGA Tour and knows what happens when he pulls a wood out of his bag on a par 5 when he is in a little trouble. It is not like Tiger is an average PGA Tour player, so he needs to be careful not to cause trouble for his playing partners.

  4. This whole thing is nonsense. You pre-suppose that there is an issue with Tiger pulling his club when Sergio was going to hit. There isn’t.

    You say this in one spot: “but one can never be sure what happened exactly with the marshal.”

    and then this in another

    “Tiger was wrong and didn’t want to admit that he had made a mistake.”

    Huh? YOU JUST SAID nobody can know exactly what happened with the Marshall.

    I’m not sure exactly what your point is here, but this missed the mark for me.

  5. I am in agreement with Erik on this incident. Garcia had plenty of time to back off and reset himself. The fact that he chose not to do so, and then made another poor decision in airing it to the press instead of manning up and confronting Tiger directly just shows his lack of maturity.

    One further comment – with all of the concern about pace of play, I feel that it is contrary to the good of the game in general to censure a player for doing nothing more than taking the club he plans to use and starting to get ready for play. I don’t care if it’s Tiger or Phil or whoever, or what the stakes may be. This is sending the wrong message to the average player. He is now going to take this to the course and think that he is also not allowed to pick a club until it’s his turn, rather than being praised for being proactive and getting ready to play the moment that the opportunity presents itself, with distance checked, club selected and details worked out.

  6. I agree with Erik’s comments but not the part about him being young. Sergio is in his early thirties now and should have grown up by this point. I grew to like Sergio after seeing his interview on Fehrety but think in this case he should have manned up and said something to Tiger when it happened and not used the press as his shoulder to cry on.

  7. The ironic thing to me is that Sergio could blame anybody but himself. He has control over his game and body.

    Case in point. Tiger on Sunday is set up and ready to hit his tee shoot on 14. He had a 2 shot lead and the tournament in the bag. He gets to the to of his backswing and stops because a dragonfly lands on his ball. You can hear someone in the gallery say “Nice Stop”. He steps away, and goes through his routine again. Then proceeds to hit it in the water. If that was Sergio, he would have been complaining about that dragonfly still. Of, and by the way, he would have never of had the intestinal fortitude to rebounds like Tiger did. The really crazy thing is I would be willing to bet that if Tiger doesn’t stop his swing there, he doesn’t hit it in the water. I would not want to be that dragonfly however.

  8. “Tiger has played in a lot of tournaments on the PGA Tour and knows what happens when he pulls a wood out of his bag on a par 5 when he is in a little trouble.”

    Really? Find me some YouTube evidence or written accounts of crowds regularly reacting like this to Tiger pulling a club.

  9. Sergio’s biggest mistake was going public with his comments regardless if he was wronged or not. You got a problem with Tiger or anybody in life don’t grab a megaphone and scream injustice. Address Tiger or your beef head on… Mano y Mano. Whining is the sign of a weak or inferior man. This was best exemplified on 17 & 18. A lesson for the rest of the field…mess with the Tiger and you WILL get the claws.

  10. Gotta agree with y’all. Because of the premium on silence and concentration in golf, it places a lot of pressure on players to make sure they don’t do things to distract other competitors, but what Tiger did here was not only unintentional, but so minimal that Sergio should’ve left it alone. Here’s one for you – Tiger is in the trees and he can either blast it through going for the green or hit out sideways. He turns to face the alley toward the green and the crowd starts murmuring like they did with “5-wood Gate” here, and the guy in the fairway accuses him of riling the crowd. Does that act make him a bad guy as well? Maybe we should put Tiger into cryogenic freezing before every shot. These whiners need to chill.

  11. Tiger has nothing to apologise over. Sergio should never have said anything to the media as the only person he should have said something to was Tiger. Even if he couldn’t talk to tiger he should have for his caddy to talk to tigers caddy.

    Besides, I can’t think of anyone worse than Tiger to have a feud with! 🙂

  12. —————
    MICHAEL C. HEPP said:

    … Tiger said he had asked a marshal if Sergio had played, got an affirmative response, and went about his business. In watching the event on replay I cannot agree that is exactly how it went down. … I have even seen recent stories where the marshal on the course states that he did not give Tiger the go-ahead, and later stories confirming that a marshal did give him the go-ahead… Either way, marshals are not always on top of what is going on.
    ________________________________________

    News flash, Michael. Marshals are not supposed to act as referees between tour golf pros.

    I’m going to be a hole marshal this week at the Senior PGA Championship, and marshals have a very specific role: Keep order on their given hole. Marshals make sure:
    * Pro groups have priority of movement
    * Spectators get ample time to move through the hole crosswalks
    * Spectators are aware that a pro is ready to hit
    * Tee box marshal signals the right or left rough marshals if a ball is going “outside the ropes.”
    * The “ball is protected” if it lands outside the ropes.

    If anything, Tiger-Sergio Round 3 falls under “rub of the green.” Sometimes unfavorable things happen, but golfers are expected to take it in stride – and not complain about it.

  13. @WUTiger I agree with you that Marshals are not and should not be talking to the players unless there is an necessary reason. Thing is, it was Tiger who said the Marshal told him he could go. I am just going from what Tiger said and what I saw of the event.

    @Fourputt I think you have an extremely valid point about pace to play.

  14. No surprise here, given my posts in the Players discussion thread, but I’m with Michael on this one. This is pretty much, dead on, my view of things as well. Guess we’re in the minority here. 🙂

    Good read, Michael!

  15. No way no how Tiger was wrong on this. The author even says so in the story:
    “I have been to a few Tour events and it is rarely if ever dead quiet. There are people on other holes cheering birdies, yelling fore off tees all sorts of craziness and the player either backs off or plays through it.”

    There you go. Does Sergio miss shots every time there is a roar from god knows where? No. He messed up and found a reason to blame Tiger, like a crybaby. Anyone who thinks otherwise to this doesn’t have any common sense.

  16. Sergio is a whiner. Despite that I was actually pulling for him to beat Tiger down the stretch. Not to be. For Sergio to be a winner he has to develop the mental strength to be a top competitor. In that he is lacking. That said, this media generated scrap between players is total BS and not worthy of mention.

  17. 1. Sergio is just a sore loser and whiner. He was tied for the lead with 2 holes to play. Just one birdie would have sealed the deal, and 2 pars would have gotten him into a playoff … instead we get 3 “water balls”. Get a grip and grow up, Sergio.
    2. Having flicked thru’ various golf websites, it appears that most journalists / bloggers are taking Sergio’s side … Why, I ask myself? There’s always 2 sides to every coin.
    3. Now that Sergio has stuffed his foot into his “fried chicken” mouth, I’d be interested in who is now right and/or wrong.

  18. I am sympathetic to Sergio’s position. I think Sergio could have handled it much better if he had accepted responsibility for making the swing, despite being distracted. For example, “I heard the crowd around Tiger, and I should have stepped away, but I stupidly did not and ended up hitting a terrible shot.” That would have conveyed the same message (that Tiger is an insensitive d*ckhead), but wouldn’t have resulted in folks calling Sergio a whiner and a baby. The media narrative of Tiger vs. Sergio is silly, and while it may sell advertising, it does little to add insight to golf fans.

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