Sergio Garcia refuses olive branch to Tiger Woods

Sergio Garcia faces the media yesterday ahead of the BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth. Picture: Getty

“No, not really,” replied Garcia. “I think we had more interesting things to talk about than that.”

Nearly two weeks after their spat during the Players’ Championship at Sawgrass, there is little sign of a truce on the horizon between Garcia and Woods. “No” was the terse reply when Woods was asked on Monday if he had any intention of holding out an olive branch and yesterday  Garcia also kept the pot boiling.

On his return to the BMW PGA Championship, the European Tour’s flagship event at Wentworth, after an absence of more than a decade, he admitted he had made an “extra effort” to be reunited with his team-mates from last year’s memorable Ryder Cup win in Chicago. All 12 were due to be here this week until Swede Peter Hanson pulled out due to injury.

He also acknowledged that a relaxation in the tax laws that came into force for the Olympics last year had helped pave the way for him to be back in Viriginia Water, but did not want to go into the fine details of his finances. “My lawyers and accountants take care of that,” he said. “I’m not going to go into numbers.”

It was the perfect opportunity for a colleague to inject some wit as he brought up one of golf’s biggest talking points at the moment. “Can I ask something less controversial then: why don’t you like Tiger Woods?”

Garcia, who was furious after he claimed Woods had caused a distraction in the crowd when he was hitting a shot as they were paired together in the third round at Sawgrass, had taken the bait when the subject had been raised at a TaylorMade event the previous night and he is clearly not for letting it go.

“You can’t like everybody,” he declared. “I think there’s people you connect with and there’s people that you don’t. You know, it’s pretty much as simple as that. I think that he doesn’t need me in his life and I don’t need him in mine. Let’s move on.”

Asked when he first realised that Woods wasn’t his cup of tea, Garcia added: “A while back.” Over any particular incident? “No, I don’t think so. There’s just never really been a true connection like I would have with maybe Luke [Donald), Lee [Westwood], Adam [Scott] or some of the other guys I get along with well.”

Somewhere, probably even soon, tournament organisers are going to put the pair in the same group again and hope the sparks fly. Garcia was asked how he would feel about that.

“Great,” he replied. “It is what it is. It’s fine. It doesn’t mean that I cannot play with him. It’s just another player, obviously a good player. It’s just when I’m playing with someone I enjoy (being with), there’s a bit more talking going on. When you’re playing with someone that you don’t fancy as much, you’re just a little but quiet.”

But would there be a  handshake on the first tee after all the bitterness that has reared its head over the past fortnight? “Of course,” he said.

Garcia, still hurting from  losing out to Woods in the game’s unofficial fifth major after running up a quadruple-bogey 7 at the 71st hole following two visits to the water then making a hash of the last as well, admitted the Tour had been trying to lure him back to  Wentworth “for a while”.

Delighted it has finally  happened, he said the Ryder Cup card had been a big factor. “I think this year was a bit extra special having all the players (from Medinah) here,” he commented. “I wanted to make a little bit of an extra effort to be here and it fitted nicely into my schedule.

“It (the tax relaxation) has helped a bit, too, but the main reason was that the Tour wanted to make this tournament extra special this year after what  happened with the Ryder Cup. So it was worth it to make a little bit of an extra effort to come and play.

“I love what the European Tour stands for. I love  coming back here and kind of disconnecting from the US a little bit and seeing my Spanish friends and Italian friends and  Argentineans and so forth.”

Also on the agenda for Garcia in Britain this year is an Open Championship date at Muirfield, where he first underlined his enormous potential when  winning the Amateur  Championship in 1999.

“I love The Open,” he said when asked about his attitude to majors these days and his chances of finally winning one. “It has always been my favourite and if I could only win one major, I would love it to be The Open. But, you know, I’m not going to get picky on which one,” he added, smiling.