By David Kraft
ESPN Golf Online
Monday, August 28

It wasn't supposed to be this way.

Sergio Garcia had electrified the 1999 PGA Championship, engaging Tiger Woods in a memorable back-nine duel that included an even-more-memorable shot on the 16th hole, when Garcia sliced a 189-yard six iron from a dreadful lie around a tree and onto the green -- punctuating it with a spirited run-and-hop up the fairway.

	Sergio Garcia shot 74-69-73-69 in the PGA Championship last week.

Garcia was golf's new challenger to Tiger Woods' throne. With David Duval struggling and his own PGA heroics, Garcia was primed to join in the battle for the title of best young golfer on the planet.

But it hasn't been easy since then for the 20-year-old Garcia, who turned pro just prior to the 1999 Masters. El Niño won once more in '99 and was part of a winning Dunhill Cup team. But in 2000, he has done no better than a third on the PGA Tour (his only top-10 finish) and no better than 10th in five European Tour events.

He has changed caddies. He has putted cross-handed. He even killed a seagull with a tee shot on the fourth hole during the U.S. Open at Pebble Beach.

But by all accounts, he hasn't been the same player.

"The biggest downer I had has probably been the first three or four months of this year," says Garcia. "I wasn't happy. I wasn't playing very well, and I had a rough time."

Garcia says he has been playing better since The Masters, where he finished tied for 40th. His third-place finish at the Buick Classic in Westchester in June earned him $204,000, and he tied for 14th at The International earlier in August.

"I have been in contention in almost every tournament I have played," Garcia says. "So we have been up there, and we just have to hold it there, and that will be fine."

Now he gets to face Tiger Woods in the Battle at Bighorn. He'll do it with a conventional putting grip again, having abandoned his cross-handed approach before the Canadian Skins Game.

"Putting cross-handed helped me a lot with my shoulder alignment," Garcia said. "I felt pretty comfortable putting cross-handed -- the only trouble I had was with distance control.

"But now that I have my shoulders a lot better, I am putting conventional again," he said. "And I have been putting pretty well."

Garcia finished tied for 34th in the PGA Championship at Valhalla -- 15 shots behind Woods. On the bright side, though, he shot 69 in the second and fourth rounds. It was the opening-round 74 and a 73 on Saturday that hurt.

Does he feel extra pressure playing against Tiger? The two haven't been paired together this year -- and there's no format Woods likes better than match-play (Woods advanced to the finals of the Andersen Consulting Match Play Championship earlier this year; Garcia was eliminated in the third round by David Duval, 2 and 1).

"It's probably a little bit of extra pressure, but I don't think that it is something that ... shows in your game," he said. "I think if you are strong mentally and you believe in yourself, you don't have to have any trouble with that."

So Garcia knows he has an opportunity to erase some of the memories of 2000. Before last week's PGA Championship he said he already is beginning to forget.

"Bad things -- there have been a couple or two," Garcia says in English. "It was a tough year at the beginning, and a couple of things (happened) that maybe shouldn't have happened. But those things are going to happen sometimes, and you are going to realize that.

"I will say there has been a lot more things good than bad, so they kind of go on top of the bad things and you really can't remember."