Sergio Garcia Equals More Ryder Cup Records

The Ryder Cup legend matched two records on day one at Whistling Straits

Sergio Garcia celebrates during the 43rd Ryder Cup
(Image credit: Getty Images)

The Ryder Cup legend matched two records on day one at Whistling Straits

Garcia equals more Ryder Cup records

The Ryder Cup records continue to tumble for Sergio Garcia as he matched Sir Nick Faldo for most match wins (23) and it took him ahead of Arnold Palmer who leads the American standings.

The 41-year-old also moved level with Bernhard Langer with 11 foursomes victories and he will surely get a chance on Saturday morning to edge past the German.

Garcia is playing in his 10th Ryder Cup and this opening salvo was as spectacular as any as he and Jon Rahm teamed up beautifully to dismantle the American power pairing of Jordan Spieth and Justin Thomas.

The putter that is so often lukewarm at best was red hot and he barely missed a shot – even a half-topped 3-wood travelled 270 yards down the fairway.

“Every point is important and any point that you can bring to the team, it's always welcome and it's always exciting," Garcia said after his victorious opening foursomes game.

"And I was just very honoured to, even though this is my 10th Ryder Cup, to play with Jon.

"It's something that I wanted to do for a while.

"I was very honoured to hit the first tee shot, and it was just amazing how well we both played and how Jon stepped up every time he had to do it. It was great.”

Related: 10 incredible Ryder Cup records

Three years ago in Paris, again a captain’s pick, Garcia became the all-time record scorer and he now has 26.5 points in the competition.

He was rested for the Friday fourballs and, should he get the chance to play his own ball on Saturday afternoon, he could tie Ian Woosnam for most fourball wins (11).

As for the singles he has four wins, the record is six, so we might have to wait until Italy 2023 for that milestone.

Mark Townsend
Contributing editor

Mark has worked in golf for over 20 years having started off his journalistic life at the Press Association and BBC Sport before moving to Sky Sports where he became their golf editor on skysports.com. He then worked at National Club Golfer and Lady Golfer where he was the deputy editor and he has interviewed many of the leading names in the game, both male and female, ghosted columns for the likes of Robert Rock, Charley Hull and Dame Laura Davies, as well as playing the vast majority of our Top 100 GB&I courses. He loves links golf with a particular love of Royal Dornoch and Kingsbarns. He is now a freelance, also working for the PGA and Robert Rock. Loves tour golf, both men and women and he remains the long-standing owner of an horrific short game. He plays at Moortown with a handicap of 6.