LIV GOLF BEDMINSTER

August 9, 2023

Sergio Garcia

Trump National Golf Club

Fireballs GC

Press Conference

THE MODERATOR: We are joined by the captain of Fireballs GC, Sergio Garcia. Welcome, Sergio. Before we get started, I wanted to ask you about Mr. 58, Bryson DeChambeau and his incredible round and if you were able to watch any of it afterwards and if you were able to talk to him and kind of your comments on that.

SERGIO GARCIA: Yeah, I saw him in the locker room after he did all his media and stuff before I flew back to Austin quickly, and obviously it was super impressive.

To be able to shoot -- obviously playing conditions were favorable, but it doesn't matter. To be able to shoot 58, it's something that doesn't happen -- it only happened once before, so it doesn't happen very often at all.

He obviously played great. He did everything well, drove the ball great and hit it close and made the putts.

I guess one of those rounds where everything kind of goes the way you expect it, other than probably the 8th hole. I was very happy to see him doing that, and obviously he's been playing very well.

To me, the most impressive thing is not just the 58, it's that he shot 61-58 on the weekend. People don't realize how difficult it is to shoot two rounds like that back-to-back.

THE MODERATOR: We are back at Trump Bedminster. Tell us a little bit about this golf course, your experience with it, and if you think it suits your game this week.

SERGIO GARCIA: Yeah, I liked it. I played well last year. I remember that I was right in it until I didn't hit a good tee shot on 12 on Sunday. But other than that, it's a solid golf course. I would love it to get a little bit firmer and stuff, but it looks like we're going to get some rain tomorrow, so that's a bit of a shame. It looks great. I can't wait to go out there and have a little practice, but it looks in great shape, so excited to see it.

Q. There's only three tournaments remaining in the 2023 regular season that will crown the individual and team champion. The Fireballs are currently sitting in sixth place in the team standings, and you guys still have the ability to make it into fourth to get that bye for that first day on Friday. Are you guys thinking about that this week and for the next couple of regular season events?

SERGIO GARCIA: For sure. We know we need three good weeks to get into the top four. It's going to take -- it's probably going to take at least three podiums, if not better than just second and third, because everyone else is playing, too, and they can also have good weeks.

It's going to take a lot of good work. I think unfortunately we left ourselves more work than we would have liked to for these last three events, but we know we can do it. I have faith in my teammates. Hopefully we'll start with a great week here and kind of keep it going into Chicago and Jeddah.

Q. Jon Rahm has been very vocal about him missing you specifically playing in the upcoming Ryder Cup. Can you talk a little bit about that?

SERGIO GARCIA: Yeah, we've talked a lot about it, him and I. Obviously, yeah, everyone knows how much I love the Ryder Cup and the bonds that we've been able to build and are created in those Ryder Cups.

Obviously Jon is no different. We had a great time. We obviously are good friends, and our friendship kind of got even stronger after the last Ryder Cup.

Yeah, it is going to be a shame. I will miss him, too. But hopefully he'll find another partner that suits him, and they can do well together.

Q. Since you're captain of the Fireballs, is there anything that surprised you about the whole team dynamic in LIV since you've been a member?

SERGIO GARCIA: No. I mean, obviously week to week to week, it's like week after week after week, it's not something that we did as golfers. Obviously we did have that team camaraderie in like Ryder Cup and maybe -- when we used to play the Dunhill Links, that was countries against countries.

But it's nice to have that kind of feeling, and like I said earlier, the relationships that you build among yourselves.

It's been great fun. It's been good to be a part of it.

You can't help yourself but think about it, and if you're not doing well, you're like, oh, man, what can we do to make the team better or perform a little better or something like that.

You're always trying to do a couple things here and there to create a bigger bond among your players and see if that helps them perform to the best of their abilities.

Q. You're pretty tight with some of the Torque guys. Are you surprised at all at how much success they've had this year with four tournament wins?

SERGIO GARCIA: Well, am I surprised? Not really, because I know all of them, and they're all not only great guys, but they're amazing players.

I know and everyone knows about Joaquin, how good he is, but obviously the potential that Mito has and the game that he has and also Sebastian. He's really solid.

But I think that probably the key thing for that team is how much David has improved, and that shows a lot. Obviously he's gotten a lot more comfortable out here. At the beginning was probably a little bit nervy and stuff, but now you can see that he's playing much better. He's playing with a lot of confidence, and that's helping the team a lot.

Obviously those little things here and there help a lot, and when you have four really solid players like they do, then you're able to do that.

Q. You guys kept obviously the same lineup this year. Joaquin basically revamped the entire lineup of his. You talked about kind of that camaraderie and dynamic. Did you expect that they would get so tight so quickly?

SERGIO GARCIA: Yeah, because they're good friends. They're all good friends. Obviously they weren't part of a team before, but they're all very good friends.

Mito is one of Joaquin's best friends. Obviously Sebastian, they're good friends. We all hung around together when we were playing on Tour. Obviously David has jelled nicely into the team.

It's not really a surprise.

Q. They're second right now, and 4 Aces are still at the top. Obviously Torque has some momentum right now. Who do you consider the team to beat?

SERGIO GARCIA: I think I wouldn't go just with those two. Obviously yeah, those are the usual suspects that you may say, but I think Crushers, obviously Bryson is playing very well, and Anirban is very solid. Paul, if he's fit, he's a great player. Obviously Charl is a really solid player, too.

I think there's several teams that have improved a lot this year. RangeGoats are much better than they were last year.

You have to be aware of several of them, but at the end of the day, I think, like I said, I have a lot of belief and confidence in my team, and I think that if we're firing on all cylinders, we can beat anyone.

Q. Coming off a 63, I think that's your best round in LIV. Do you feel like you're kind of at the same form as you were when you were in Singapore?

SERGIO GARCIA: I don't know. I've been working hard. I feel like I'm starting to get a few things sorted out here and there.

I still don't feel like I'm firing on all cylinders at all.

Obviously last week I got better as the week went on, which was nice, and just got to keep building on that momentum.

But I still feel like I can get much better, at least I really think so, and hopefully I'll be able to do that.

Q. I wanted to ask you about the framework agreement, which obviously there's still a lot of details to be hammered out even if it is approved. If it gets to that point, Phil has said that not a single player on LIV would want to play on the PGA TOUR. Do you think that's an accurate assessment of kind of the general sentiment out here?

SERGIO GARCIA: I mean, I can't speak for everyone else. I do feel like it's the kind of feeling. I think that everyone around here is very happy and very comfortable where they are. Speaking for myself, yes.

Like I said, I wanted to come here to LIV, not only because I love the product but because I wanted to play less. The possibility of playing PGA TOUR comes, I doubt that I would play because I don't want to play more.

I want to play good quality golf the amount of times that I want to play and be able to spend as much time as I can with family and friends. That's my personal feeling.

Q. Henrik said it sounded like everybody out here was caught off guard just like everybody on the PGA TOUR was. I'm curious, in the weeks since the announcement, have Yasir or Greg or anybody in LIV management addressed what might happen or what has happened in any kind of formal capacity?

SERGIO GARCIA: I mean, they've been giving us little updates here and there. Personally on my side, I had the feeling that this was going to take a long time to kind of get arranged and sorted and if it happens or doesn't happen, but to kind of get everything done. There's a lot of moving parts, and it's not going to happen one day to another.

I wasn't expecting things to happen overnight, and obviously it's not.

But things are fine here. Things are fine there. We just keep moving along and doing our own thing, and at the end of the day, that's what we love. We love playing golf and competing, and that's what we're doing.

Q. In terms of time frame, you have no other knowledge than anybody else?

SERGIO GARCIA: No. No. But I don't really care. Whenever it happens, it happens. For me, it's not like it has to be next week or two months. Whenever it happens, it happens, and I'm not going to be the difference maker on that.

Q. Over the last year and a half that you've been with LIV, how have you seen the tour grow, the league grow, and what changes would you like to see going forward, and what improvements would you like to see made as it continues to improve and develop?

SERGIO GARCIA: I think it's been great. I think -- I said it from the beginning, I thought that it was better than expected early on because it's something brand new, and you always see little things here and there.

But obviously LIV and everyone around has been working hard to try to make things better and better as we go along. They've been able to do that.

There's still things, obviously, that we can always improve. Same thing with our games. There's always little things that you can get better at, and that happens with everybody. That happens with every company.

I don't think you're always going to reach perfection, so that's the beautiful thing about it. You can always drive to get better, and I think that's what LIV is doing.

I'm happy to see all the improvements that they've been doing.

Q. Where do you currently stand with the DP World Tour, and as we get closer to the Ryder Cup, is it kind of tough not to think about how you're not going to be involved with the Ryder Cup this year, and are you wishing you could be a part of it in the future? Where do you stand with that, given everything that's happened over the last year?

SERGIO GARCIA: Yes, I would love to, obviously. Yes, it is disappointing to see that I'm not going to be able to be part of the Ryder Cup this year and the DP World Tour for the same matter.

But it is what it is. At the end of the day, I'm happy where I am, and that doesn't change. But I also want to kind of move on and concentrate on the events that I have left and focus on that because we have enough things in our heads to put more stuff in there and make it even tougher.

But at the end of the day, hopefully there will be a way back and something that we can work on, and we'll see what happens in the future.

Q. I know you're focusing on what you can control, but are there any events you do miss playing when you look back at your career with the DP World Tour and the PGA TOUR?

SERGIO GARCIA: I mean, there is a couple of courses that I really enjoyed that you kind of miss playing. But at the same time, we play some really fun, amazing courses, new courses with LIV, and there's some new experiences. They're good.

Q. I just wanted to ask, are you surprised at the impact LIV Golf has had on the entire game because of all the money that poured into LIV Golf, and what has that been like for you to experience?

SERGIO GARCIA: Well, I'm really happy to see that -- I really feel like the game has gotten better. I feel like the competition has gotten better. I think that everyone is taken care of better. That's a good thing.

We always say that competition is good not only in golf but everywhere. I think that's what LIV brought to golf.

At the end of the day, we want to do what we love, which is playing golf, and try to grow the game as much as possible. It's nice to see like in our tournaments, nice to see the average age that you see coming and watching us and stuff, it's nice to see those younger people coming and showing up and enjoying the golf and having a good time, because at the end of the day, you want to keep your game as young as possible, because that way your future looks brighter. That's a good thing.

Q. There has been some controversial back and forth between the PGA and LIV, and one person mentioned earlier Phil was saying he doesn't think anybody would want to play over there, but does that make for an uncomfortable situation going forward? Do you see people having trouble to adjusting to a merger?

SERGIO GARCIA: I mean, to be totally honest, I don't think it should be. I think if everyone is coming together, I think that people should just move along and get on with it. Whoever doesn't, then it's their problem.

I'm a big believer in second chances and things like that, and I think that at the end of the day, if we can all be rowing in the same direction, it's much better than if we're rowing in separate directions. But unfortunately the world doesn't always work like that, I guess.

Q. Yesterday Bryson went on the Pat McAfee show and it was a great interview, but he had alluded to next year some of the things coming down the pike and maybe a couple of new teams expanding for the league. If one of your old buddies like a Jon Rahm or somebody else from the Tour called you and said, hey, Sergio, you seem to be really happy here, what do you think, should I come, what would you tell that guy?

SERGIO GARCIA: I mean, the only thing I could tell him is my experiences and how it's been here and everything.

At the end of the day, I'm not -- that's one of the things that I loved about Jon throughout the whole thing. We don't make decisions for each other. We can give each other advice and say, you know, this is what is happening, this is what I'm going through and what I'm experiencing, and then giving the most amount of information so then he can make the best decision for himself at the end of the day.

I think that we're all old enough to do that.

But among friends, it's nice to talk and say, well, this is what's going on, this is what could be better, this is what's going on and stuff like that, and if the situation came, then he could make his own decision, of course.

Like he said, and I totally respect and I feel the same way, whichever decision at the end of the day you make, you have to accept it and you have to be fine with it because it's your life. I'm making what I think is the best decisions for me and my family and my game, and he's going to make whatever he thinks is best for him.