{"id":330373,"date":"2023-09-11T23:19:45","date_gmt":"2023-09-11T23:19:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=330373"},"modified":"2023-09-12T03:02:13","modified_gmt":"2023-09-12T03:02:13","slug":"liv-defector-understands-brutal-25-year-snub","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=330373","title":{"rendered":"LIV defector 'understands' brutal 25-year snub"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s been more than a quarter century since Sergio Garcia<\/a> wasn\u2019t part of Europe\u2019s Ryder Cup<\/a> team.<\/p>\n

The energetic Spaniard, who joined the Saudi-backed LIV Golf<\/a> tour, knew what was coming, though, when captain Luke Donald called recently to let him know that he wouldn\u2019t be taking part in this year\u2019s event.<\/p>\n

Not as one of Europe\u2019s 12 players. Nor as one of Donald\u2019s five vice captains.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe\u2019ve chatted a little bit and he certainly wishes the team all the best. It\u2019s different for me (too),\u201d Donald said after his entire team practiced at the Marco Simone club outside Rome that will host the Ryder Cup later this month.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u201cIt will be the first Ryder Cup I\u2019ve been involved without Sergio. But he understands the role and he was more than supportive when I talked to him just a few weeks ago.\u201d<\/p>\n

Garcia played in 10 Ryder Cups from 1999 to 2021 and holds the Ryder Cup record for most points at 28.5, going 3-1 in his last appearance at Whistling Straits two years ago. Garcia didn\u2019t play in the 2010 Ryder Cup when he took a break following a slump. But he was named as a vice captain for the 2010 event.<\/p>\n

With Europe having been routed by the United States in 2021, Donald picked three rookies for his team in Ludvig Aberg, Sepp Straka and Nicolai Hojgaard.<\/p>\n

The 23-year-old Aberg has been a pro for just three months but the former No.1 amateur won the European Masters a day before Donald announced his team.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve known about Ludvig for a long time,\u201d Donald said. \u201cHe obviously came out to the professional circuit and picked it up pretty quickly, some very strong finishes … He\u2019s a tremendous driver of the golf ball, which is really a strength around Marco Simone and he\u2019s already fitting in very well with the team.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Smith<\/p>\n

Another hot player is Viktor Hovland, who won the BMW Championship and FedEx Cup title last month.<\/p>\n

\u201cExtremely big wins,\u201d Donald said. \u201cWe have four of the last six FedEx Cup winners on our team. So these are positives that I\u2019ll be talking to the guys about and keep pumping them up. But we won\u2019t take the US lightly. They\u2019re a very strong team and we\u2019re still hurting from two years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n

Between No.2 Rory McIlroy, No.3 Jon Rahm and No.4 Hovland, Europe has three of the top four players in the world rankings.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have 12 very hot players, to be honest,\u201d Donald said. \u201cI\u2019m very happy with my 12.\u201d<\/p>\n

Three players \u2014 Rahm, Hovland and Straka \u2014 arrived early before the two-day training camp to visit the Colosseum.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey said," Donald recounted, \u201cit was amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s been more than a quarter century since Sergio Garcia wasn\u2019t part of Europe\u2019s Ryder Cup team. The energetic Spaniard, who joined the Saudi-backed LIV […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":330375,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330373"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=330373"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330373\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":330378,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330373\/revisions\/330378"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/330375"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=330373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=330373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=330373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}