NEW LOOK: 1 Year Later Sergio Garcia & Callaway Part Ways

Early in 2018, Sergio Garcia made shockwaves. No, it wasn’t for spitting on another golfer or beating his caddie to death with his putter. Instead, Sergio was announcing that despite a 15-year run with TaylorMade, he would be leaving TM to sign a multi-year deal with Callaway Golf. At the time of the announcement the news wasn’t too startled, as Sergio had been spotted using Callaway clubs as early as late 2017.

However, to say the relationship has been less than stellar would be an understatement. While Callaway’s equipment seems to be doing fine (just ask Phil about hitting bombs), Sergio has failed to return to his Masters glory. This has only been compounded by the drama of his own creation, including having a complete bunker meltdown and a day later, being disqualified for damaging several greens at the Saudi International.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by GolfBetterTucson.com (@golfbettertucson) on Feb 3, 2019 at 8:20pm PST

Interestingly enough, as the Abu Dhabi Golf Championship is coming up this weekend, Garcia was spotted with a noticeably different setup in play. Readily identifiable in Sergio’s bag—which now appears to be a plain, black adidas staff bag absent any club manufacturer’s branding—are TaylorMade’s new SIM fairway metal and PING Blueprint irons (identifiable by its tungsten toe screw) and Glide 3.0 wedges:

Sergio Garcia was spotted with Ping clubs in the bag in Abu Dhabi. I spoke to a Ping representative about how the whole situation transpired. https://t.co/OOwVVAL9DL pic.twitter.com/HecTBvQwML

— Jonathan Wall (@jonathanrwall) January 14, 2020

Jonathon Wall from Golf.com confirmed the spotting with PING representatives, along with the fact that Sergio is hiding a G410 driver under his bull headcover.

While details certainly will come out very soon concerning each of the 14 clubs and the ball that he’ll playing with this weekend, it’s very interesting that the Sergio-Callaway marriage, despite being a “multi” year arrangement, only lasted a brief 2 years. Sergio is no longer listed on the Team Callaway section of Callaway’s website and presumably might be a free agent.

Perhaps this opens the door for additional players to follow in Koepka’s footsteps and play what’s best for them.While speaking of Koepka, it’s been suggested that Koepka has moved on from his trusty Nike driving iron to a TM 790, in addition to trying out the new TaylorMade SIM and Mizuno ST200 drivers (which I’d 100% be doing after a 15 year old managed to outdrive me).

 

 

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by European Tour (@europeantour) on Jan 14, 2020 at 6:25am PST

This is particularly appealing to players who have been struggling, such as Sergio, who could benefit from truly playing what’s best for them after being handicapped and forced into playing the newest thing from their sponsor. Case in point: Patrick Reed. Love him or hate him, Patrick looked very sharp with his new Grindworks irons developed just for him (which, allegedly, double as shovels).

 

 

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by The Golf Library (@thegolflibrary) on Dec 6, 2019 at 7:14pm PST

Cover Image Via Twitter