LIV GOLF MIAMI

April 5, 2024

Sergio Garcia

Trump National Doral

Fireballs GC

Press Conference

THE MODERATOR: Let's welcome Sergio Garcia, the captain of Fireballs GC. You are currently at the top of the leaderboard. You shot 5-under today. Tell us a little bit about your round.

SERGIO GARCIA: Yeah, obviously solid round. Nothing too spectacular. Felt like I drove the ball nicely, hit a lot of greens. I wasn't super sharp with my irons other than a handful of shots here and there. But the ones that I missed I got a couple good up-and-downs, and then I rolled a couple birdies, a couple nice birdies here and there. That kind of pretty much sums it up.

Q. How do you have to play this course to break out of the pack and get a solid lead?

SERGIO GARCIA: Well, it's the kind of course that if you -- it's in great shape, so that obviously helps, but if you play solid, you can put a score in there. You have to hit a lot of fairways, and that allows you to be a little bit more aggressive into the greens.

But if you start missing fairways, it gets tricky. A lot of flier lies that you have to go over water and things like that. It's not that easy to guess.

Obviously driving the ball well is important, and then from there you can kind of figure it out.

Q. I was saying to somebody earlier, you're right there at every event. You're so close. What do we need to do to break through, to take home that first W out here for you?

SERGIO GARCIA: I don't know. I've just got to keep giving myself chances. It's as simple as that. I think that some weeks you feel better than others, and I've been close a couple of times. Obviously a couple of times very close, and then another three or four times I've been fairly close, around the lead.

Just got to keep giving myself chances. I feel like my game is still not exactly where I want it to be, so there's still -- I feel like there's still quite a bit of room for improvement, and just got to keep working on it.

Q. I said the same thing to Bubba, Masters is right around the corner, you're leading this event. What does that say to everybody out there about the condition your game is in and where you're headed next week?

SERGIO GARCIA: Every week is different. Obviously if you play nicely, it gives you a little bit of confidence for sure, but every week is different, and you never know how Augusta is going to play, the conditions you're going to get.

Augusta is very, very tricky, and it can be a little bit tough to swallow sometimes. Just got to keep your feet on the ground, and even if you win this week, you've got to go out there with your feet on the ground and just try to do the best possible.

Q. How excited are you for Jon Rahm's dinner?

SERGIO GARCIA: I'm very excited about that. It looks amazing, a lot of Spanish food, so for me it's great. It's the kind of food -- I love all kind of food, but obviously that's even more special for me.

I know how special that night is as a past champion. I was fortunate to live it once, so I know that for him it's going to be the same thing, and it should be great fun.

Q. Sergio, going around this course bogey-free, how impressive is that? Is that one of the first times that you've had a bogey-free round here at Doral?

SERGIO GARCIA: Good question. Probably. I don't know if it is or not. But I haven't had many for sure. Obviously the par save on 13 was huge to keep my round going, and like I said earlier, I wasn't spectacular with my irons. Like I wasn't hitting it super close most of the time, but I was hitting a lot of greens. My lag putting was good. I didn't put myself under a lot of stress. That obviously helped.

Q. You changed putters this week; is that right?

SERGIO GARCIA: Yeah. The guys from Golf Fire, the putter that I was using, they're working on building me a smaller version of the one that I was using. I feel more comfortable with that kind of putter, something that is a little bit more compact, a little bit smaller. So I went back to my 1999 Scotty Cameron that I had at home, and Scotty obviously fixed and made it look nice like it was brand new.

Obviously I have a lot of good memories from that, with that putter, and I wanted to bring it back, and it worked quite nicely today.

Q. When was the last time you used it before today?

SERGIO GARCIA: I used it last year, probably two or three events towards the end of the year and before I sent it to get it fixed and stuff.

Q. Looking back on your life on Tour and your life on LIV, as far as scheduling, what is the same, what is different? How do you compare the two?

SERGIO GARCIA: I mean, it's totally -- it's one of the reasons why some of us came here, without a doubt, to be able to schedule your year knowing pretty much exactly where you're going to play the whole year. It's important, and the amount of tournaments that you're going to play. So that's huge for me more than anything now that I'm 44 and I have two kids and a wife and people that I love to spend time with.

The PGA TOUR is great, don't get me wrong, and I'm very happy about everything that it's given me, but the last few years, it felt like you have to pretty much play every week if you wanted to be around the top, unless you were winning five or six times a year. You had to pretty much play every week.

I'm not in the age or shape to play 28 or 30 events a year, physically, mentally, and also family-wise. Obviously this was a no-brainer for me, everything that it brought, and the thing about the teams and the security that it gives you financially and everything, it was a no-brainer.