Sir Nick Faldo Calls Sergio Garcia ‘Most Immature Player I’ve Ever Seen’

Sir Nick Faldo has criticised Sergio Garcia’s comments on former friend Rory McIlroy, where the Spaniard declared he was lacking maturity over their well-publicised feud.

LIV Golf player Garcia made the comment in an interview with The Telegraph, where he said: “I think it is very sad. 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.”

However, Faldo suggested that the volatile Spaniard was far from the ideal person to be making such a comment. The six-time Major winner wrote on Twitter: “Now this is rich coming from the most immature player I’ve ever witnessed!!”

It’s not the first time Faldo has taken issue with Garcia’s personality. Faldo captained him at the 2008 Ryder Cup, when Team Europe lost to Team USA. Six years after that tournament, Faldo said of Garcia’s contribution: “He was useless. Half a point, bad attitude.”

Garcia, of course, eventually enjoyed a glittering Ryder Cup career and is the team’s record points scorer in the biennial tournament. However, while those contributions helped him to become one of the most revered players of his generation, he is also well-known for his hot-headedness.

Two of the most recent have come in the last year, firstly not long before he moved to LIV Golf, where he raged at a rules official during last May’s Wells Fargo Championship and declared he “can’t wait to leave this Tour.” He duly made the switch, but then reportedly flew off the handle in an expletive-laden rant at the BMW International Open on the DP World Tour in response to the tours sanctioning of players teeing it up on the rival circuit a few weeks earlier.

McIlroy has said there is “no way” his friendship with Garcia can be rekindled. Given Faldo’s remark, it seems likely he won’t be handed an olive branch from the 65-year-old any time soon either.