CARNOUSTIE, Scotland (PA) -- Sergio Garcia has had plenty of practice at picking up the pieces after disappointment in the majors. But coping with losing a four-shot lead, then a one-shot lead on the last and then a playoff at the British Open last summer will be the hardest thing the 27-year-old has ever had to face in his career.
Especially as he felt worked over by this Open. Not just on the wrong end of what luck was going, but also the victim of what he saw as an unnecessary delay at a key moment.
Garcia, without a tournament win in nearly 23 months heading to Carnoustie, left with a sour taste in his mouth, complaining about the amount of time it took before he could play his second shot to the 72nd hole when he was one ahead.
"Having to wait 15 minutes on the fairway doesn't help when you are trying to win the British Open," said the Spanish star. "I guess the first five or seven minutes you couldn't avoid because the guys in front were putting. Then it seemed to take a long time to rake two bunkers. I don't know.
"It took a long time, a very long time. It's not fun, not fun standing there when you know you're hitting the ball well and you know what you have to do," he added. "With an 8-iron or 9-iron it's not easy, but you're hitting a 3-iron and you need to make par. It's not very easy.
"I'm just not happy about the extra lot of time it took to get everything ready for me to be able to hit my second shot."
He eventually pulled it into a bunker, splashed out to eight feet, but just failed to hole the first putt he has ever had to win a major.
Garcia, whose previous trip to the course in 1999 saw him shoot 89-83 and finish last, also cursed what he saw as his exceptional bad luck.
"I don't know how my putt missed. I'm still trying to ask myself, trying to find an answer on that," he said. "And then I should write a book on how not to miss a shot in the playoff and shoot 1 over. I just have to move on and hopefully do better next time."
At the second hole of the playoff Garcia hit the flagstick from the tee, but his ball bounced away.
"It's funny how some guys hit the pin and go to a foot. Mine hits the pin and goes 20 feet away," he said.
"You know what's the saddest thing about it? It's not the first time, unfortunately," he lamented. "So I don't know, I'm playing against a lot of guys out there -- more than the field."
They say that nobody remembers who comes in second. But at Carnoustie different rules seem to apply.
Eight years after Jean Van de Velde's closing triple-bogey 7, Garcia got closer than ever before to winning his first major, but he let it slip away and departed empty-handed yet again.
It was his 13th top-10 finish, but because there is still not one victory in that haul he continues to carry the tag "best current player never to win a major" around with him. And Garcia has also still to hold the Claret Jug as his own -- 11 years after he was first allowed to put his hands on it.
Former U.S. Ryder Cup Captain Tom Lehman became friends with Garcia after he first saw him hit balls at the 1995 Lancome Trophy in Paris, when the youngster was just 15, and thought "holy smoke."
And when Lehman became the British Open champion at Royal Lytham the following summer, Garcia, having qualified as European amateur champion, was there, too.
"On the practice range in France he was knocking it 20 yards past me," said Lehman at Carnoustie when it looked as though Garcia was about to break into the big-time at long last. "Then at Lytham he was inside the ropes the last two days after missing the cut, wearing a TV armband I think.
"After I won I went back out on to the 18th with some buddies to take some photographs and he was still there, so I let him hold the trophy."
Garcia remembers Lehman joking: "'You know what, you better hold on to the cup because you're going to do it, so you better start practicing.'
"It was nice and made me think that hopefully I can win this more than once," Garcia said. "It was a really great experience for me being only 16 and playing in my first major. It was something that I'll never forget.
"I think there are guys that maybe get a bit luckier and have one or two chances and win, and there's some guys that it takes 15 or 20 chances," he added. "So it looks like I'm one of those 15 or 20 chances guys."
He is getting close to that figure now and will be comforted by remembering that Phil Mickelson had 17 top 10s before winning the Masters, and then two more majors in quick succession.
"I think Sergio will be like Phil," said Lehman. "Once he gets one, others will follow."
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