It's Sergio's Time!

From the iconic moment that youthful Spaniard emerged from behind a tree and bounded up the fairway at Medinah in the 1999 US PGA Championship, Garcia had been feted as a Major champion in waiting.

And waited he has. A further 69 Major championships, in fact, since he finished runner-up to Tiger Woods in Chicago.

On April 9 2017, the day one of his golfing idols, the late Ballesteros, would have turned 60, the stars eventually aligned for Garcia in Georgia, and Spain finally had another Major champion, another Green Jacket.

“To do it on Seve’s 60th birthday and to join him and Olazábal, my two idols in golf my whole life, it's something amazing,” said Garcia. “José sent me a text on Wednesday night telling me how much he believed in me. And what I needed to do. And just pretty much believe in myself.”

Like Ballesteros before him, Garcia displayed obvious talent from an early age, taking up the game at the age of three under the careful tutelage of his father Victor, a club professional in Spain. Young Sergio won his club championship aged just 12 and four years later he became the then youngest player to make the cut at a European Tour event in the 1995 Turespaña Open Mediterranea. Land of Valencia, aged 15 years and 46 days.

Victory in the 1998 Amateur Championship earned Garcia a first invitation to the Masters Tournament in 1999 when he shared a practice round with both Ballesteros and Olazábal, wisely picking the brains of his compatriots who already had three Green Jackets between them at that point.

Olazábal would go on to swell that number to four that week, and initially, Garcia felt Augusta National offered him an enticing opportunity to one day join Spain’s elder statesmen in the pantheon of Major champions. Yet over time that feeling diminished, with eighth place in 2002 and tied fourth position two years later the nearest he came to the Green Jacket, before he ultimately ‘found peace’ with the course.