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

The six-time Major winner has hit back at the Spaniard’s claim that Rory McIlroy was lacking maturity over their feud

Sir Nick Faldo takes a shot at the 2022 JP McManus Pro-Am
Sir Nick Faldo has hit out at Sergio Garcia over his criticism of Rory McIlroy
(Image credit: Getty Images)
Mike Hall's avatar
By
published

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.

TOPICS
Mike Hall
Mike Hall
News Writer

Mike has over 25 years of experience in journalism, including writing on a range of sports throughout that time, such as golf, football and cricket. Now a freelance staff writer for Golf Monthly, he is dedicated to covering the game's most newsworthy stories. 

He has written hundreds of articles on the game, from features offering insights into how members of the public can play some of the world's most revered courses, to breaking news stories affecting everything from the PGA Tour and LIV Golf to developmental Tours and the amateur game. 

Mike grew up in East Yorkshire and began his career in journalism in 1997. He then moved to London in 2003 as his career flourished, and nowadays resides in New Brunswick, Canada, where he and his wife raise their young family less than a mile from his local course. 

Kevin Cook’s acclaimed 2007 biography, Tommy’s Honour, about golf’s founding father and son, remains one of his all-time favourite sports books.