AUGUSTA, Ga. — Sergio Garcia has not had a great week at Augusta National Golf Club, and after an opening bogey to begin his final round, the 2017 Masters champion was already on tilt when he arrived at the tee box on No. 2. There, he hit a leaky fade off the tee that found the large fairway bunker on the right, which was a poor tee shot to be sure … but far from the worst we’ve seen this week.
To Garcia, it was a catastrophe, and it prompted one of the most jarring meltdowns in recent Masters memory as he slammed his driver into the turf, taking a huge divot, before breaking his driver by smashing it into the cooler behind the tee.
Golf is an incredibly frustrating game, but this tantrum from Garcia was way over the line for a player who was already out of the tournament and only on his second hole of the day. It was his second wayward tee shot of the morning — he landed in a patron’s chair on No. 1 — but the fairway bunker on the 2nd isn’t even a particularly disastrous place to end up, as evidenced by him going on to make a par.
That fact didn’t seem to matter much to Garcia, who took a big chunk out of the middle of the tee box and ensured that he couldn’t hit driver the rest of the way by snapping the shaft. Later, as Jon Rahm’s caddie raked the bunker behind him so Garcia’s caddie could get a number after he laid up, he carried Rahm’s bag down the second fairway in a truly bizarre scene.
Unsurprisingly, that outburst wasn’t appreciated by ANGC, and Garcia received a code of conduct warning on the 4th tee. He’s gone the rest of his round without incident, but it wasn’t a good look for the past champion. Every group the rest of the way will see his excavation work on the 2nd tee box and wonder what possibly could’ve happened to take a deep divot on the tee of a 585-yard par 5.