19 September 2023 , 13:01
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Sir Nick Faldo has told Sergio Garcia and his fellow LIV Golf stars that they're "done" after the Spaniard made a last-ditch effort to make this year's European Ryder Cup team.
Garcia has been a stalwart of the Team Europe setup over the past two decades, but will miss his first Ryder Cup since 2010 after resigning his DP World Tour membership due to his LIV allegiances. According to The Telegraph though, the Spaniard made an attempt to regain his Ryder Cup eligibility by paying £700,000 in owed fines to the DP World Tour.
The surprise proposal was rejected by the DP World Tour, meaning Garcia will have to watch this year's match-up with the Americans from home for only the second time since making his debut in 1999.
Following Garcia's attempts, Faldo was quizzed on whether he felt the absence of the 2017 Masters champion hampered the European team, to which he brutally replied on Golf Today: "You've got to be kidding! I think we have got one of the strongest teams we've ever had, plus those guys [on LIV Golf] have not played in enough tournaments.
"They're in a different world now, they have left the Tour and haven't supported the Tour, so hey, they are done and that's it. The team has moved on, the game has moved on, and Team Europe is fantastic. I don't think they could do anything better.
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"They have got a really big deep backbone with guys that have been around before. We might even have a couple of very interesting secret rookies up our sleeve, which I think is very powerful." Both Faldo and Garcia already have a chequered past, especially when it comes to the Ryder Cup.
Sergio Garcia was unable to be selected for this year's Ryder Cup (Getty Images)Faldo was the man in charge of Team Europe when they fell to defeat at the hands of their American rivals at Valhalla in 2008. Six years on from the Ryder Cup defeat, the former captain labelled Garcia's efforts in 2008 'useless' whilst commentating at the 2014 Ryder Cup for NBC.
The Englishman then went on to retract his 'useless' comment, swapping it for 'lousy' when describing the Spaniard's efforts in Kentucky six years earlier. "In semi-jest, I used a word which, maybe I could have chosen a better word, if I had gone for lousy, that might have captured it better because that was his worst-ever Ryder Cup," he told NBC.
"I believe I know the reasons why but I am not going to add any more fuel to the fire. More importantly I wish Sergio and the European team an exceptional day today. That is all it is. It is a long time ago and when you react on live television it might come over a little harsh, but there was no malice."