Garcia quiets belly laughs

The Baltimore Sun

CARNOUSTIE, Scotland -- That old beast Carnoustie must have snickered yesterday when it saw Sergio Garcia ambling toward the first hole with his caddie and his bag and his new belly putter.

That's funny, because when Garcia and the caddie and the bag and the belly putter ambled back down from No. 18 in the evening, the beast lay conquered in the first round by Garcia's 6-under-par 65, and the 136th British Open had another theme.

Not only had Garcia, who had shot an 89 in the first round here in 1999, shaved 24 shots off that horror to lead the field by two strokes, but Garcia might just spend the weekend trying to defend the honor of the belly putter.

They share a labored history, Garcia and this belly putter. Neither has won a major despite years of trying.

So after Garcia bypassed Paul McGinley's 67 and Angel Cabrera's 68 and Tiger Woods' 69, plus 20 other players who participated in a cavalry charge to the great land of under par, Garcia got testy when one reporter gently mentioned the belly putter's 0-for-history.

"You shouldn't say that," Garcia said. "You guys are always trying to find something, you know. A European hasn't won in so many years [eight, actually]. Nobody has won with a belly putter and this and that.

"You know, if I play like I played today and I putt like I putted today, maybe that will change soon. I don't care, I really don't. ... If I have to use, I don't know, whatever, a plastic bag to get in the hole, I'll use whatever. So it doesn't matter. It's just stats and stupid little things that you guys like to talk about."

What in the name of Bruce Lietzke is going on here? Well, Garcia clearly dislikes any pooh-poohing of his new friend, the belly putter, which across a sanguine afternoon in chilly but serene conditions helped him to some stats he might like: a mere 27 putts, a score of 31 on the back nine, birdies on Nos. 10, 12, 13, 14 and 17.

Long betrayed by putters after seven top-five finishes in majors and missed cuts at the Masters and U.S. Open this year, Garcia finally listened to belly-putter endorser Vijay Singh and switched after the U.S. Open. For the first day of the first major, anyway, he recorded his best start in a major, one shot better than his 66 at the 1999 PGA in Medinah, Ill., where at age 19 he finished second to Woods and became world famous.

It can be tough for a dashing youngster with big drives and a big future to yield to a golf-geriatric belly putter, as Garcia's case indicates. Asked why he didn't yield sooner, he said, "I don't know. Vijay has been telling me for like a year or two to do it, and I haven't been listening to him."

So he walked up to No. 1, the course not shuddering, and he drove into the fairway, hit an 8-iron to 8 feet, holed that for a birdie, and turned to his caddie, Glenn Murray. "I looked at him and said, 'Well, that's four better than last time,' " when he managed an opening triple bogey.

Then, he went about bypassing bright lights that had climbed the leader board at the new tough-but-fair Carnoustie, as opposed to the 1999 concentric-circle-of-Hades Carnoustie.

Garcia passed the crowd yesterday at 2-under, including Woods and the scalding K.J. Choi, with Woods having eagled No. 6 with a certainty available to a twice-defending champion.

Garcia went on by the crowd at 3-under, which included U.S. Open champions Cabrera and Michael Campbell, plus Irish teenager Rory McIlroy and American Boo Weekley.

Eventually, Garcia surpassed even McGinley, the Irishman who had shot a 67.

McGinley had gone out ahead of everybody, with John Daly passing him once for about five minutes, yet here came Garcia and his belly putter.

Having left in 1999 in his mother's arms and tears, Garcia grinned and joked, "Today I almost went to tears again."

As a grizzled veteran of 27, he said, "I'm sure at the end of my career I will have learned more from the 89 I shot in '99 than from the 65 I shot today, because there's a lot more things to think about and there's a lot more things to worry about and try to figure out."

Chuck Culpepper writes for the Los Angeles Times.

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