Sergio Garcia hasn’t been the same since 2017. With a Masters win at 37, it felt like he had finally achieved the defining goal of his career. Because what followed wasn’t just a dip in performance and rankings, but perhaps even in things like motivation and consistency, too. He has appeared in further Masters since then, but doesn’t have much to show for it, and 2026 might be another example in line if the early optics are anything to go by.

At a place where confidence defines contenders, Garcia, now 46, self-admittedly feels anything but that. Considering the test Augusta poses, several players have already arrived at the venue hoping to get some early practice in, and Garcia is one of them. While he was trying to reacquaint himself with the layout, his rhythm appeared a bit off. So when asked about his form, García responded candidly, as seen in a clip shared by Flushing It Golf.

“Not super happy at the moment, but we’re working, and we’ll see. We’ll see what happens throughout the week. Yeah, at the moment I’m not feeling amazing,” the Spaniard said, after his solo stroll on the front nine at the Augusta National Golf Club on Monday, as he made his way across the rolling fairways and tall pine trees.

“There’s obviously good and bad, I guess. But fortunately there’s some really good moments here. You try to think a little bit of some of those that you’ve lived in the past, and hopefully you get more to build on.”
If those comments are something to go by, it seems like Garcia knows the conversations around his name are no longer the same as they were a decade ago.

That change becomes clearer when you place his Augusta record before and after 2017 side by side. Across his first 19 Masters appearances, he made the cut 14 times and regularly worked himself into contention windows across the week. But since winning the Green Jacket in 2017, he has returned seven times and made the weekend only once, finishing T23 in 2022. The rest of those visits ended early. 

The 2017 victory itself had carried unusual weight in his career arc. It arrived in his 74th attempt at a major championship and ended nearly two decades of near-misses that had defined how he was framed across the sport. Before that week at Augusta, Garcia already had 22 top-10 finishes in majors without converting one. Beating Justin Rose in the playoff at nine-under-par 279 closed one of the longest-running storylines attached to any elite player of his generation.

What followed, however, did not resemble the kind of second peak that sometimes arrives after a breakthrough major. Instead, the very next Masters offered an early signal of how uneven things would become. 

Returning as defending champion in 2018, Garcia recorded a 13 on the par-5 15th during the opening round and missed the cut. It was one of the most striking single-hole collapses ever recorded at Augusta and marked the beginning of a stretch in which his results at the tournament became far less predictable than they had been before his win. 

Recent Masters previews have tended to group Garcia among past champions still capable of producing moments, but not among the players expected to shape the leaderboard late on Sunday. A Reuters field breakdown ahead of the 2026 tournament, for example, listed him alongside other former champions whose recent form has struggled to translate into contention outside LIV Golf events. 

Part of that change is structural. Since leaving the PGA Tour and later stepping away from the DP World Tour during the LIV Golf transition period, Garcia’s schedule has unfolded largely outside ranking-point pathways that typically keep players visible in major-week projections. That shift hasn’t removed him from Augusta as Masters champions retain lifetime invitations, but it has changed how often his name appears in the contender tier during tournament previews.

Age has played its role as well. Garcia is making his 27th Masters start this week, returning to the same course where he completed the defining victory of his career nearly a decade ago. Players can still compete effectively at Augusta into their mid-40s, particularly those with deep course knowledge, but the tournament’s demand for precision approach play and confident putting over four days tends to narrow the margin for error quickly. That makes even small timing issues, the kind he referenced earlier in the week, harder to absorb across the full tournament stretch.

Seen in that context, his expectations entering this year’s Masters sounded noticeably grounded.

“Let’s see if I can make the cut. That would already be a very good week,” he admitted, as reported by Ten Golf.

Garcia’s honesty about his form this week also echoes something he had once admitted at Augusta long before his breakthrough in 2017. Back in 2012, during another Masters run that briefly put him in contention, he openly questioned whether he even had what it took to win a major at all.

Sergio Garcia admitted he was not good enough after the 2012 Masters

The Spaniard turned professional back in 1999. Over the years, he accumulated 16 DP World Tour titles and 11 PGA Tour victories. While these numbers reflect the amazing career he has built, Sergio Garcia once doubted himself.

Doubts began creeping up during the 2012 Masters. Before the fourth and last round, Garcia was already declaring that he had no chance to win that year’s coveted Green Jacket, or any future one either. Before that, the closest he got was a T2 at the 2007 Open Championship. However, he had a chance at the 2012 Masters. The Spaniard was in contention to win at the midway point. But that happiness didn’t last long, as he tumbled alongside Rory McIlroy.

“After 13 years, today was the day … I don’t have the capacity to win a major … It’s the reality. I’m not good enough and now I know it. I tried for 13 years, thinking I can win,” Sergio Garcia said after the 3rd round.

It is a sentiment that not many professionals publicly admit. His 2017 win gave him a boost, as he started to hope for more and win even more majors. However, that motivation and excitement seem to be vanishing, as Sergio Garcia once again finds himself in a tough spot going into the 2026 Masters.