On Sunday at Valderrama, Victor Garcia stood in the left rough inside the ropes as his son, Sergio, made his second extra trip down the 18th at his favourite course in the world. Wearing a white bucket hat, Victor, a club pro who taught Sergio the game from age 3, curiously held an iron underneath his arm. It wasn’t a spare club from his son’s staff bag, rather a chunky, game-improvement 7-iron.
When you love the game as much as the Garcia family, you apparently take your own clubs to the course in support, in the same way fans lean towards the fairway or a green when a golfer they’re watching hits it offline. As Sergio two-putted for par to defeat India’s Anirban Lahiri, marking the Spaniard’s first worldwide victory in almost four years, and maiden title on the LIV Golf circuit, his old man did a dance somewhere between proud dad and Flamenco.