Sergio Garcia has had an eventful weekend at TPC Sawgrass, calling out Tiger in public and spending most of two days at the top of the leaderboard. The drama with Tiger will continue, but his stay at the top came to an abrupt end at the famous par-3 17th hole at the Stadium Course.
Coming off a birdie at the par-5 16th, Sergio strolled to the 17th tee in a tie for first with Tiger. The door was opened by Woods earlier when he yanked his tee shot into the water down the fairway at No. 14, but Sergio matched, and then exceeded him at No. 17.
Garcia took aim at the traditional far-right Sunday pin location and his title hopes came undone. Sergio's first tee shot was well short of the island green and dropped right in the water in front of the bunker protecting that side of the green.
After the first one, Sergio still theoretically had a chance to go bogey-birdie coming in and hope Tiger dropped a shot on the last. Moments later, he opted to take his second shot from the tee as opposed to the drop area and this time just landed it on the front of the island. But the ball cruelly rolled back onto the wood beams that line the edge of the island and fell back into the water. Just like that, it was all over for Sergio:
The back-to-back water balls, particularly that second one, provoked some loud cheers at the amphitheater setting on the 17th. Just for good measure, the former Players Champion decided to donate one more ball to the course on the 18th, pulling one into the large lake that lines the entire left side of the fairway.
Poor Sergio.
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