LIV GOLF INVITATIONAL SERIES: JEDDAH

October 15, 2022

Abraham Ancer

Sergio Garcia

Royal Greens Golf & Country Club

Press Conference

Q. You guys obviously got a taste of winning last week, and it looks like it's carried over. How did that change you guys going into this week in terms of all right, we got the job done and now we just want to build on it?

SERGIO GARCIA: Yeah, I mean, obviously we were close a couple of times, a couple of thirds, and we all felt like we were playing well and just a couple of things here clicking, not quite clicking at the right time. But obviously last week was amazing with Eugenio playing so well and the three of us playing solid.

It got us through that little hurdle. It definitely gives you a little bit of extra confidence, without a doubt.

I think it's carried over to this week, and we're excited to have another shot tomorrow. Abe Abe I also think counting three scores every day plays a big part, just because I feel like we have a really solid team. We definitely feel like we have a deep team. We all are playing solid golf, but we just didn't have those really low rounds in those events that we didn't finish high up there on the leaderboard. But yeah, we were very close there for a while to having a good tournament as a team, and it was nice to see Chacarra play incredible last week and us as a team pretty solid, so we're just carrying that over for this week.

Q. Sergio, can you take us through the left knee; how much did it impact you last week? Obviously you're right in the mix this week. I don't know if it's impacted you at all this week.

SERGIO GARCIA: Well, it does. It does a little bit, I'm not going to lie. But you know, I'm playing through it. Obviously I am struggling to hit draws. That's when it hurts the most. I can kind of hit little fades and kind of go around, make my way around the golf course.

Obviously I've been hitting a lot of good shots. Like I said earlier, this is special. It's different. Probably if we weren't playing the team format and everything, I probably would have taken a few weeks off and probably fixed whatever is wrong on my knee.

I feel like I can still play even though it hurts a little bit and I can manage to play through it and try to help my teammates as much as possible.

Q. What is it exactly? What did they tell you?

SERGIO GARCIA: I haven't had an MRI yet. Carlos's physio checked it out and she told me that it was probably a damaged meniscus. That's the inside of the knee. It's a little sore, but a couple of pills and grind your teeth and play through it, I guess.

Q. And about the course, I assume it really fits both your games? It's obviously 800 yards shorter than last week. Talk about the course and how it plays with you guys.

ABRAHAM ANCER: I love it. This is not my first time here, and I've always felt like it's a golf course that you can't really overpower. You have to be in the fairway, and the fairways get pretty tight, especially when the wind pumps up like this. There's a lot of cross wind. You have to be striking the ball really solid. If you don't, the ball tends to go really, really off line. I enjoy that.

I love the wind. I love the golf course. It's tough to make a lot of birdies. Just looking at Peter and Brooks, that was some really impressive scoring. It's tough to make a ton of birdies on these greens, too, with the wind and just how tricky they are.

But I like the golf course. I'm a big fan.

Q. Sergio, you've played here before?

SERGIO GARCIA: Yeah, I've played four times, I think. Yeah, I enjoy it. I think obviously it's playing much different than it plays in February. In February it plays a lot faster. It becomes probably even trickier. There's a bit more rough in February.

I think that now, even in this wind, if you hit the ball well, you can still be quite aggressive with some of your shots.

I've been able to do that for the most part, and I guess that's why we're both out there.

Q. Sergio, with your knee injury, is that looking like an operation or anything serious like that?

SERGIO GARCIA: I don't know. It might need a little cleanup or something. I'll know more next week when I have a proper MRI and kind of take a look at it.

It sucks. It sucks because I've been very fortunate with injuries throughout my career. I've been very healthy. To play through one, it's not the most enjoyable thing. But playing for these guys makes up for it.

Q. About the DP World Tour, you received a fine in recent days. Do you think you'll be playing on that Tour again?

SERGIO GARCIA: I don't know. As of now, it doesn't look like it. But we'll see. At the end of the day I want to play where people want me, where people are excited to have me, and where I feel like I'm welcome and loved. Right now that's here, that's at LIV, and I'm very excited about that.

Q. You guys are accustomed to winning. You just came back from Bangkok, and today you did very well. You sit behind Smash, but do you think tomorrow you can pull it off and still get the trophy?

SERGIO GARCIA: Yes, I think so. We're playing well. Tomorrow is not going to be easy. Probably going to be windy again. We're playing for a lot of things.

It's exciting, and we're excited about it. We feel confident, and we're going to give it our best shot without a doubt.

ABRAHAM ANCER: Yeah, I feel like with the three scores counting, that's huge. There can be a lot of movement, especially on a golf course like this. It's definitely going to take three really solid rounds from us and maybe not three very solid rounds from the guys on top. But we can't focus on that; we're just going to do our thing and come out there and hopefully guns blazing. We just have to play some solid golf.