LIV Golf's Sergio Garcia makes shock revelation to Rick Shiels

Sergio Garcia tells Rick Shiels he will return to the DP World Tour in order to make European Ryder Cup team.

20 Feb 2024

LIV Golf's Sergio Garcia makes shock revelation to Rick Shiels

Sergio Garcia has told Rick Shiels he will make a shock return to the DP World Tour this year in a bid to regain his place on the European Ryder Cup team in 2025.

Record European Ryder Cup points scorer Garcia, 44, was snubbed any involvement in Luke Donald's 2023 European Ryder Cup team following his decision to terminate his membership of the DP World Tour.

Garcia's call to rip up his DP World Tour card came after the circuit fined and suspended all members that switched to the Saudi-bankrolled LIV Golf League.

UPDATE: The DP World Tour has since confirmed to GolfMagic that Sergio Garcia has NOT regained his DP World Tour membership for 2024 despite this interview saying otherwise back in November 2023.

Other European Ryder Cup legends such as Lee Westwood and Ian Poulter also decided to terminate their memberships of the DP World Tour at the same time as Garcia.

Although Garcia paid his heavy £700,000 fine to the DP World Tour last season, it was too little too late where the European Ryder Cup team and DP World Tour was concerned as the Spaniard played no part in the action at Marco Simone last September.

Donald's European side went on to defeat Zach Johnson's United States team by five points in Rome.

But in recent comments made to YouTube golf sensation Rick Shiels, Garcia has revealed his determination to play his way into at least one more Ryder Cup team.

Garcia, who recently finished runner-up to Joaquin Niemann in LIV Golf's first event of the season, admits he is eager to be involved in Donald's 2025 European Ryder Cup team at Bethpage Black in New York.

In order to give himself the best possible chance to make the next team, Garcia told Shiels he not only intends to play well in the upcoming major championships, but that he will regain his DP World Tour card this year and compete in the minimum four tournaments required of a member.

NOTE: Garcia's interview on The Rick Shiels Golf Show below was filmed in November 2023, but only made public by Shiels during his latest podcast episode this week.

Watch from 49 minutes on Shiels' video below for Garcia's thoughts on the DP World Tour and Ryder Cup...

Garcia told Shiels:

"I am going to be a member again of the European [DP World] Tour, so I will play my four events or something like that. Maybe if I do well in those, maybe I can get myself in [to the European Ryder Cup team] somehow."

Garcia added:

"I always said that I wanted to - when I joined LIV - I wanted to still keep being a member of the DP World Tour and play my minimum four events and keep my card. Obviously they didn't make it too easy to be able to do that, but one of the reasons why I joined LIV was to play less so I can spend more time with my family."

Shiels then asked Garcia how many tournaments he intends to play around the world in 2024, to which he replied:

"If all goes well, I will be playing around 21 or 22 events."

That number will include 14 tournaments on LIV Golf, four regular DP World Tour events to ensure he sees out the requirement of his DP World Tour membership, and then four major championships (providing Garcia qualifies for all of them).

Garcia has lifetime eligibility of The Masters having slipped on the green jacket at famed Augusta National in 2017.

The Spaniard told Shiels in a typical season when he was playing a mixed schedule on both the European Tour and PGA Tour, he would have competed in 27 events.

But with less competitive golf on his hands these days, and soon to be back in the fold on the DP World Tour, Garcia is hopeful he can find his way into an 11th Ryder Cup team.

Garcia said:

"I want to give myself the best possibility for it [of playing the Ryder Cup]. Only playing a handful events, it is not easy to make it unless you do super, super well. But I guess at the end of the day if I am eligible, they see I am making the effort and I do well in LIV and I am consistent then at least hopefully I can be considered, not only because of my game but because of what I can bring to the team, and my history in the event."

Garcia, owner of a record 28.5 points at the Ryder Cup, told Shiels he is not yet thinking about being a future Ryder Cup captain.

He said:

"At the moment I am not thinking about Ryder Cup captaincy. I feel like I can still bring a lot as a player but yes, obviously it is a possibility, we will see what happens."

The Rick Shiels Golf Show, which first launched in November 2019, has now amassed more than a quarter of a million subscribers on YouTube.

Fronted by the world’s most watched online golf personality Shiels - whose original YouTube channel has 2.75m subscribers - the eponymous podcast first aired on the video sharing platform in February 2020 and has subsequently received 33m views with 5.7m hours of content watched.

Will Garcia make the 2025 European Ryder Cup team? Will he ever win another major again? Share your thoughts over on the GolfMagic social media channels.

Take me to more golf news!