Sergio Garcia aims to make it five first-time major winners in a row
Wednesday 27 July 2016 23:43, UK
Sergio Garcia is determined to continue the trend of first-time major champions this season when he makes his 18th appearance in the PGA Championship at Baltusrol.
Garcia has long been regarded as one of the best players in the world without a grand slam title but feels encouraged by the performances of Danny Willett, Dustin Johnson and Henrik Stenson.
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Jason Day also broke his major duck in last year's PGA Championship and Garcia, who finished tied for fifth in the US Open and The Open this season, is confident of being in contention again in New Jersey this week.
"It's obviously nice to see new major winners, but every week is a new world and a different story," said the 36-year-old Spaniard.
"I would love to make it five in a row. Obviously it would be very nice, but we'll see. It's a long week, and my goal is to play well, to give myself another shot at winning a major, and then see what I can come up with.
"To see Henrik at 40 winning and the way he did it, it was very much deserved. And look at Phil, he's 47 and he almost won. So if you stay healthy, you still can give yourself a lot of chances. That's my goal, to keep giving myself chances and hopefully take as many as possible in the coming years.
"I've played with Henrik for a long, long time, we played amateur golf together. Obviously he did have his ups and downs like we've all had. I had them, Lee Westwood had them and Henrik had them. But it is nice to see the way he's been playing.
"He's just so solid and he's been giving himself a lot of chances, waiting for that day where everything clicked. So I think that what that shows me is that, never give up, keep giving myself chances and keep waiting for that day when things really happen my way and then hopefully I'll be able to raise that trophy."
Garcia has posted no fewer than 22 top-10 finishes in majors since being runner-up to Tiger Woods by a single shot at the PGA Championship in 1999 and insists he is now more relaxed over his many near-misses than he was "five or 10 years ago".
He is adamant it will not be "the end of the world" if he ends his career without a major and feels the current strength in depth of golf worldwide has made his quest for an elusive first grand slam title more difficult.
"I understand how difficult it is to win every week," he added. "I always said it doesn't matter if it's a major, it doesn't matter where it is. It doesn't matter if it's in the US, in Asia, in Europe, in Africa. It is tough to win. Nowadays, there's the level of play from guys coming up and it's so much higher than it used to be.
"So that is great for the game of golf, and the only thing I can do is just, like I said, keep giving myself chances and just wait for it. Hopefully it will happen. If it doesn't happen, it's not going to change my life.
"I'm not going to go in a cave and stay there until I die because I didn't win a major or anything like that. It's not that serious. I'm not going to lie, it would be nice to get at least one. But it's not the end of the world."
