Sergio Garcia may have started a trend that he did not want to start at Augusta this weekend. Just a year after 2017 defending champion Danny Willett became the first winner at Augusta to miss the cut the following year since 2004, Sergio Garcia did the same after a horrible two days left him at 15-over for the tournament.
The only other time two straight Masters champions missed the cut was in 1996 and 1997 (Ben Crenshaw and Nick Faldo, respectively).
Garcia didn't do himself any favors in the first round, shooting an 8-over 13 on the 15th hole in a nightmarish fiasco in which he buried five shots in the water hazard in front of the green. Garcia had his work cut out for him after shooting 9-over 81 in the first round, but a bad day from the overall field gave him hope. Garcia, however, simply couldn't capitalize, shooting 6-over 78 for the second round.
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He is now the 11th defending Masters champion to miss the cut the next year (and the 10th unique person to do so), doing so about a month after placing fourth at the Valspar Championship. Here's a look at the list, and the good news for Garcia (and Willett, for that matter) is that a lot of the names are hardly one-and-done champions:
- Jack Nicklaus (1967)
- Tommy Aaron (1974)
- Seve Ballesteros (1981 & 1984)
- Sandy Lyle (1989)
- Ben Crenshaw (1996)
- Nick Faldo (1997)
- Jose Maria Olazabal (2000)
- Mike Weir (2004)
- Danny Willett (2017)
- Sergio Garcia (2018)
It was a difficult day for everyone not named Patrick Reed at the Masters, so even a decent day could have kept one of golf's most well-known faces in contention. However, ultimately, it just wasn't enough for Garcia, who will have to watch (or ignore) the final two days at Augusta.
