Sergio Garcia and Rory McIlroy were once good friends, but their relationship was left tarnished after the Spaniard opted to leave the PGA Tour to join LIV Golf
Sergio Garcia still sees his former Ryder Cup teammate Rory McIlroy as a ‘friend’ despite the pair finding themselves on opposite sides of the PGA Tour and LIV Golf fallout.
Garcia became one of the marquee names to leave the PGA Tour and sign with the Saudi-backed setup two years ago. McIlroy meanwhile shared contrasting views, as the Northern Irishman announced himself as one of the LIV’s setup’s staunches critics.
Towards the end of 2022 in the midst of golf’s civil war, McIlroy revealed that Garcia had sent him a text message at that year’s US Open in June, telling him to ‘shut up’ when it came to bad-mouthing the newly-formed breakaway league.
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“He was basically telling me to shut up about LIV, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,” the 2014 Open champion told the Irish Independent. “I was pretty offended and sent him back a couple of daggers and that was it.” Since then, the pair appeared to have gone to lengths to fix their relationship.
A year on from their text message bust-up, Garcia admitted his wife Angela had spoken to McIlroy at the 2023 US Open, which led to the European pair rekindling their friendship. “Angela and Rory said ‘Hi’ to each other at the US Open,” the LIV Golf star said last June.
“And there was a nice text from Rory to her. That kind of gave me the go-ahead to reach out to him. I had been thinking about it for a while but I wasn’t totally sure about it. And when I saw that reaction from him, he kind of gave me the go-ahead to get closer. We had a great chat.
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“It was two friends that wanted to get back to that spot. That’s the most important thing.” Despite this, McIlroy still fired a dig in the direction at Garcia some months later. The Northern Irishman had previously suggested that LIV could co-exist with the PGA Tour in a similar fashion to cricket’s Indian Premier League, taking a one-month slot in the season.
Garcia meanwhile was less than impressed with this suggestion, telling the Evening Standard that he felt LIV ‘deserved more’ than four weeks a season. The response was posed to McIlroy at the Dubai Desert Classic in January, as he rolled his eyes and commented: “Yeah, Sergio feels he deserves a lot of things.”
Six months however it appears there is in fact no bad blood between the ex-Ryder Cup teammates. Garcia was asked on an Instagram Q&A who his favourite pro golfer was, and included McIlroy in the list. ” I love to watch my friends,” he replied. “The guys I get along with.
“Guys like Jon Rahm, my teammates at Fireballs and Rory and guys like that. I don’t have anyone in particular but my idol was always Seve [Ballesteros] and [Jose Maria] Olazabal. Yeah, that is what it is.”