Garcia eyes World Cup boost

Garcia: Aiming for World Cup success

It would be a nice way to finish the year

Sergio Garcia
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Sergio Garcia hopes to take at least one trophy home from a disappointing 2009 by leading Spain to their first World Cup win in a quarter of a century at Mission Hills.

Last year saw an on-form Garcia take the HSBC Champions title and world number two spot from Phil Mickelson in Shanghai and talk about finally securing his first major.

However, the 29-year-old world number eight has failed to expand on his 19 career title victories this year and is now aiming to compensate by claiming the first World Cup triumph for Spain since Jose Maria Canizares and Jose Rivero won the crown in 1984.

"It would be a nice way to finish the year," said Garcia, who will be partnered by Gonzalo Fernandez Castano in the $5.5million competition.

"It has been a hard year overall, but at the same time I think it's been very positive. I think that it's made me grow a lot, not only as a player, but as a person.

"Obviously looking at the results, it has not been a very good year. But I feel like my game in the past probably three-plus months has been improving, and that's a positive for next year."

Top seeds

Spain are top seeds for the World Cup, which is in its 55th year and will be staged at Mission Hills in China on a course designed by Garcia's compatriot Jose Maria Olazabal.

"It's just a typical Jose Maria course, where obviously the premium is accuracy at some point, and then making sure that the shots to the green have to be very well struck to be able to hit it close," added Garcia.

The opening round will be played in a fourball format ahead of foursomes action the following day, with the same pattern scheduled to be repeated for the last two rounds.

"It's just a matter of being able to go out there and roll some putts in, put some good scores in there," said Garcia.

"Foursomes are always important to make sure that you do fairly well there."

Garcia believes strong contenders for the title will be England, Ireland, Germany and Italy along with defending champions Sweden, but is confident he and Fernandez Castano will be more than capable against the competition.

"There's a lot of good teams out there," he added.

"But we also have a good team. We should be very proud of that. So if we manage to use our talent, and the capabilities that we have, I think that we should be contenders for the title."