Yahoo Sports Rory McIlroy and Sergio Garcia, after public and messy falling out over LIV Golf, are finally friends again
Though Rory McIlroy is in the field at the British Open, Sergio Garcia failed to qualify
Rory McIlroy and Sergio Garcia are apparently friends again.
Or, they're at least friendly.
After what was a very contentious feud during the peak of PGA Tour-LIV Golf drama, it sounds like the two have at least started to mend their relationship.
“We’ve talked, which is a first step,” McIlroy said after his win at the Genesis Scottish Open on Sunday.
Garcia has been a very vocal supporter, for better or for worse, of LIV Golf from the beginning. He officially resigned from the DP World Tour in May after a lengthy feud with the league, and refused to pay a £100,000 fine for leaving for the controversial Saudi Arabian-backed venture.
Garcia even took on McIlroy directly earlier this year. He said before the LIV Golf season opener in Mexico that McIlroy lacked “maturity” and blamed him entirely for their falling out.
“I think it is very sad,” Garcia said in February. “I think that we’ve done so many things together and had so many experiences that for him to throw that away just because I decided to go to a different tour, well, it doesn’t seem very mature; lacking maturity, really.
“But Rory’s got his own life and he makes his own choices, the same way that I make mine. I respect his choices, but it seems like he doesn’t respect the ones I make. So a one-way street.”
Garcia said at the LIV Golf event in Spain last month that he actually reconnected with McIlroy at the U.S. Open in Los Angeles. Garcia said it started after McIlroy spoke with Garcia’s wife, Angela, briefly and later texted her at Los Angeles Country Club.
“I have been thinking about it for a while, but I wasn’t totally sure about it,” Garcia said, via Sports Illustrated. “And when I saw that reaction from him, he kind of gave me the go-ahead to kind of get closer and we had a great chat.”
Though Garcia’s play in Los Angeles wasn’t perfect — he finished T27th and went 2-over for the week — he characterized it as a “great event” in part because of his conversation with McIlroy.
“I feel like I played well. But more than anything, because I gained a friend back, a friend that I kind of felt like I lost in the last year or so,” Garcia said, via Sports Illustrated. “We talked and we had a great conversation, and I feel like I have that friend back, and that to me means a lot. That’s a very positive thing.”
McIlroy is in the field this week at Royal Liverpool for the 151st British Open, where he'll try to win his first major championship title in nearly a decade. Garcia is not, as he failed to qualify earlier this month.
Though he admitted they still have a bit further to go, and it won't be accomplished this week in Hoylake, McIlroy and Garcia are sure to interact again soon.
“There’s things that we both think we probably could have done differently, and there’s a lot that went into it,” McIlroy said Sunday. “You know, it’s good that we’re at least talking again. It’s a first step. I wouldn’t say we are all the way there but we are — it’s a good first step.”
