Sergio Garcia has told GolfMagic he withdrew from this week’s Irish Open at The K Club after not being in the right frame of mind to compete as a result of missing out on Luke Donald’s European Ryder Cup team.
LIV Golf’s Garcia, 45, returned to the DP World Tour this season in a bid to punch his ticket to the biennial dust-up against the United States in New York from 26-28 September.
Garcia’s last appearance on the European Ryder Cup side was at Whistling Straits in 2021.
He took 3 points from a possible 4 that week and was the second highest points scorer for Europe despite a crushing 19-9 loss.
The record Ryder Cup points scorer (28.5) was attempting to join Sir Nick Faldo and Lee Westwood for a joint record 11 appearances on the European Ryder Cup team this month.
But it was not to be for Garcia, who was denied one of Donald’s six picks on Monday.
Donald instead opted for Jon Rahm, Shane Lowry, Viktor Hovland, Ludvig Aberg, Sepp Straka and Matt Fitzpatrick.
The sextet now join automatic qualifiers Rory McIlroy, Justin Rose, Tommy Fleetwood, Robert MacIntyre, Tyrrell Hatton and Rasmus Hojgaard on Donald’s 2025 Ryder Cup team.
That is the same winning team as 2023 albeit Rasmus has replaced his twin Nicolai.
Donald had already revealed to GolfMagic at the British Masters two weeks ago that Garcia would more than likely miss out on his team.
That was after Garcia had won his second career LIV Golf title in Hong Kong in March before missing the cut at The Masters and finishing T67 at the PGA Championship and T34 at The Open Championship.
Donald informed us Garcia would need to show something at LIV Golf’s season-ending Team Championship in order to have any chance of receiving one of his six picks.
But the Spaniard’s Fireballs GC could only end up finishing eighth in the 12-team shootout, and it meant no place on the team for Garcia.
GolfMagic reached out to Garcia for comment after Donald’s six picks were confirmed, and the disappointment was etched on his face.
“The call with Luke was fine but not the call I wanted, obviously, but the conversation was fine,” Garcia told GolfMagic’s Andy Roberts.
“Now, the only thing I can do is support the team from home. It’s as simple as that. I’ll be watching and cheering on the European team.”
Missing out on the team though has had a direct impact on him pulling out of this week’s Amgen Irish Open at The K Club in Kildare.
“I felt like I was so looking forward to being a part of that team, and so I felt like mentally, you know, mentally it was kind of tough,” Garcia told GolfMagic.
“I didn’t want to go there and not be fully engaged in the tournament and stuff, so I just decided to take a little bit of time off and spend it with the family and do a couple of things, you know, some things outside of golf and just kind of reboot a little bit, recharge the batteries.”
Garcia has missed out on the Ryder Cup team
Garcia has fallen to 411st in the Official World Golf Rankings (OWGR) as a result of LIV Golf events still not accumulating any points.
The 2017 Masters champion won his second career title on LIV Golf in Hong Kong in March en route to finishing the season in ninth position in the LIV Individual Championship.
He finished third in that race in 2024.
LIV Golf duo Hatton and Brooks Koepka are in the field at this week’s Irish Open, which is headlined by home favourite McIlroy.
Garcia still plans to participate on the DP World Tour at his home Spanish Open at Club de Campo Villa de Madrid from 9-12 October.
But he will need a big performance on home soil in order to qualify for the top 70 that make it into the DP World Tour Playoffs beginning in Abu Dhabi in early November.
Garcia is 188th in the DP World Tour Rankings.
It remains to be seen whether Garcia has ambitions to make the next European Ryder Cup team at Adare Manor in Ireland in 2027.
Many golf analysts and even Jon Rahm have already tipped Garcia to become the European Ryder Cup captain in Spain in 2031.