OPINION

By Jim Litke

updated 10:02 a.m. ET May 12, 2008

Jim Litke

For all those questions his win in The Players Championship answered, two big ones remain.

No. 1: Where was THAT Sergio Garcia the last half-dozen years?

No. 2: How soon can we expect him to show up at a major?

Garcia hinted at the answer to the first question the moment after he wrapped his hands around the large crystal trophy.

“First of all,” Garcia said, “I want to thank Tiger for not being here. That always makes things a little bit easier.”

How much easier, as well as a definitive answer to the second question, won’t be known until Woods is done rehabbing a surgically repaired knee and returns to the hunt, almost certainly in time for the U.S. Open in June.

And to be fair, every golfer could claim his growth has been stunted by Tiger’s emergence, though it’s likely even more true of those who have hung around the top 10 in the world rankings for most of that time. In Garcia’s case, he was humbled by Woods in what was essentially a head-to-head duel in the final round of the 1999 PGA Championship, which might have kick-started the very crisis of confidence that the Spanish prodigy, now 28, appeared to finally put behind him by playing near-flawless golf down the stretch at Sawgrass.

The Players Championship is the most pressure-packed event of the season outside of the four majors, and the knock on Garcia was that he’s never been reliable in that rarified atmosphere — outside of Ryder Cup matches — and even shakier on the greens.

Video   Thrilling TPC finish May 11: The Players Championship was decided in a playoff for the first time since 1987. Johnny Miller and Dan Hicks recap the action. NBC Sports

The lingering image of Garcia on the greens that most of us carried into Sunday was him narrowly missing putts three times in the last four holes of regulation, and three times in the playoff against Padraig Harrington last summer before losing the British Open. What changed soon after is that Garcia ditched the belly putter he’d been using and hired short-game guru Stan Utley to help him rediscover the more instinctive stroke that marked Garcia as a player to be watched while still in his teens. It bailed him out a half-dozen times in the final round, the final time on No. 18 in regulation, when he rolled in a 7-footer that subsequently forced Paul Goydos into a playoff.

INTERACTIVE The Players Championship Player highlights -- and lowlights -- from the fourth round.

The other image that stuck from the British Open was Garcia complaining afterward that he never caught a break.

“You only watch the guys that make the putts and get the good breaks and things like that,” he said at the time, which was spot on. The truth is we watch the guys who make their own breaks, those who expend little time and energy cursing their luck, focusing instead on the things they can control. For once, Garcia was that guy.

After a terrific approach shot from the left rough at No. 16, and an even-better chip shot that left just five feet, Garcia’s par-saving putt didn’t even touch the hole. He led the field in both driving accuracy and greens hit for the tournament — ball-striking has never been Garcia’s problem — so it wouldn’t have been the first time he was undone by the short stick. Instead of sulking, though, this time Garcia responded with two tough pars.

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