World No. 2 Sergio Garcia is taking a different road to the Masters this year in an effort to rectify his terrible recent record in the year's first major championship.
Since finishing equal fourth in 2004, Garcia has missed the halfway cut three times in his past four starts at Augusta National, a terrible record for a player of his calibre.
So next month he will experiment by playing in Houston the week before the Masters, rather than following his usual routine of taking the week off to hone his game on the range.
"I want to play the week before in Houston and see how that works, get some momentum going into the Masters," the Spaniard said here Tuesday as he prepared for this week?s World Golf Championships CA Championship.
Garcia has been in great form for most of the past year, but he struggled on the greens at last week's Honda Classic a few miles up the Interstate 95 freeway in West Palm Beach, finishing equal 13th. It was his worst finish in a stroke play tournament in six months.
Now he comes to the Doral Resort's Blue Monster, part of an 81-man field headed by Tiger Woods, who will contest his first stroke play tournament since winning last June's US Open.
"Unfortunately I struggled a little bit last week with the greens," Garcia continued. "I couldn't read them very well but I feel pretty much the whole game is in good shape and I've been doing a little bit of work with my dad and (putting instructor) Stan Utley, and I should be geared up for this week."
Garcia was speaking in English after earlier holding a joint Spanish press conference with Colombian pro Camilo Villegas, for the benefit of the south Florida media.
The PGA Tour is aware that golf has hardly tapped the market of the American Hispanic community, and it views Villegas, especially, as a catalyst to widen the game's appeal in the US.
Villegas burst onto the scene when he tied for second here in his rookie season three years ago, urged on every step of the way by a huge gallery of his compatriots.
"I always enjoy it here, not far from home," said Villegas, who capped off a great 2008 season by winning his final two American starts at the BMW Championship and Tour Championship.
But as popular as Villegas is in south Florida, the limelight of course will fall on Woods, who won here three consecutive years from 2005-07, before last year being beaten by Australian Geoff Ogilvy.
Copyright 2009  AFP American Edition
