Sergio García

Sergio García is a professional golfer who also designs golf courses, born on January 9, 1980 at Borriol in the Spanish province of Castellón. He is known throughout the game as El Niño. As an amateur he won the Amateur Championship in 1998, and he turned professional in 1999. That same year he finished second at the PGA Championship. In 2008 he won The Players Championship, and his world ranking rose to a career-high second. At the 2017 Masters he beat Justin Rose in a play-off and took a major title for the first time, at his 74th attempt. He has won 11 times on the PGA Tour and 16 times on the European Tour. He played ten Ryder Cups for Europe between 1999 and 2021, and his 28.5 points are the most any player has taken in the match. Since 2022 he has played on LIV Golf.

His way into design came through the AT&T Oaks Course at TPC San Antonio in San Antonio, Texas, a Greg Norman design. García joined the project as a consultant, bringing a tour player’s view of the holes; the course opened in 2010 and has been the home of the PGA Tour’s Valero Texas Open ever since. The first course completed to his own design was Aranya International Golf Club at Qinhuangdao in China, which opened in 2013 and which his site describes as his first full design work in Asia. In November 2021 it was announced that he would design Mayakoba Country Club in Mexico, and he has also laid out an 18-hole course at Comporta in Portugal. His site says that his design asks for accuracy and a range of shots rather than length and power, and that above all he sets store by building a course to suit the lie of the land and the surroundings it sits in.

He has won in Southeast Asia more than once. On the Asian Tour he took the Iskandar Johor Open in Malaysia in 2012, the Thailand Golf Championship in 2013, the Ho Tram Open in Vietnam in 2015 and the Singapore Open in 2018. GoGolf does not at present list any course designed by García.

See the other golf course architects here.

Photo: AJGA（YouTube） / CC BY 3.0