Watch out for Sergio

Bill Elliott, Golf Monthly's Editor-at-large, is hoping Sergio Garcia's victory at the Wyndham Championship is the catalyst for a big future among golf's elite

BLIMEY, did you see it? Sergio Garcia can still play golf quite well.   Funny, silly young bloke is Sergio. Likeable, yes, but as mad as a box of Spanish frogs, you know the ones that croak 'ole'.   Everybody else might be talking about Fifty Shades Of Grey - my wife can't put it down and as for the book of the same name... - but in Sergio's world there is no grey, just deeply contrasting black and white. Either everything is wonderful or everything is awful and he's not sure he can go on and, anyway, he knows, he just absolutely knows, that he cannot win a major. Ever.   Total nonsense of course. Few golfers are as talented as this player. In fact he is top three material without a doubt, possibly top one if he ever managed to screw his head on the correct way and heave his heart just half an inch to the left. Or maybe that should be the right.   This may be too much to hope for but the other thing is that his victory in the birdiefest otherwise known as The Wyndham Championship, his first win in the United States since 2008, raises hope not just in his breast but in mine as well, because I'd like nothing more in golf than to see Sergio secure a proper place at the game's top table.   Why? because he is (a) fun, (b) interesting and (c) surprisingly polite. I say 'surprisingly' because some of you lot out there might now be thinking about that spitting into the golf hole four years back. Well, I once tackled him about this and he was so embarrassed and shame-faced about it that I almost felt sorry for him. "No, no, no, it was so wrong and even as it was happening I was trying to suck the spit back in, " he said. And he made a noise as though he was sucking through a straw.   Anyway, he's now back into the Ryder Cup, where he will be wound up so much by Jose-Maria that it probably won't be wise to go within 100 yards of him. Chicago better watch out because I predict Garcia will be a phenomenal asset to the Europeans when the big game begins in a few weeks time.   So Ollie is left with his two picks. Does anyone not believe that these will be Colsaerts and Poulter?   Davis Love, meanwhile, needs to pick four (silly decision to have to pick four) but this potential minefield has been neutralised by the next quartet on the American listings. Again, does anyone really think Love isn't going to go for Stricker, Mahan, Furyk and Fowler. Want to bet?

Editor At Large

Bill has been part of the Golf Monthly woodwork for many years. A very respected Golf Journalist he has attended over 40 Open Championships. Bill  was the Observer's golf correspondent. He spent 26 years as a sports writer for Express Newspapers and is a former Magazine Sportswriter of the Year. After 40 years on 'Fleet Street' starting with the Daily Express and finishing on The Observer and Guardian in 2010. Now semi-retired but still Editor at Large of Golf Monthly Magazine and regular broadcaster for BBC and Sky. Author of several golf-related books and a former chairman of the Association of Golf Writers. Experienced after dinner speaker.