James Lawton: Failure to grasp shot at glory may haunt Spaniard for rest of his days

Regrets that may now last a lifetime came pouring out of Sergio Garcia here last night. There was pain on his face and in his words and it was not so hard to grasp why. Garcia is, after all, the player who can do everything on a golf course except win the tournaments that truly matter.

The harshest view was that when he complained about having to wait 15 minutes before making the most important shot of his career ­ while Chris DiMarco and Paul McGinley finished rounds that had become utterly insignificant and bunkers were raked and his heart thumped as it had never done before ­ he was avoiding the central issue that has stalked him for some years now.

It was that the possibility of his first major victory had truly always rested in his own hands, that while he shot 73, after three days of brilliant shot-making and superb course management ­ his most serious pursuers, the winner Padraig Harrington and the Argentine Andres Romero had both been six shots better on the day when the big players have to go to their most serious work.

However, Garcia's bitterness was not so hard to understand. It was borne on the belief of many that defeat here may have inflicted lasting damage on a player whose psyche has been assaulted so many times when it seemed great triumphs were about to unfold. There was no doubt, certainly, that when Garcia waited so long to make his second shot on the 18th hole, every second could only have brought another notch of tension, another confirmation that he was living through an experience which might well define his career one way or the other.

The 27-year-old seemed close to tears when he was asked if his breakthrough victory was maybe just not meant to be, especially when he considered how his tee shot on the par-three second play-off hole hit the pin and flew away. Said Garcia, "It's funny how some guys hit the pin and go to a foot. Mine hits the pin and goes 20 feet. You know what's the saddest thing about it. It's not the first time. I'm playing against a lot of guys out there, more than the field.

"Having to wait 15 minutes on the fairway doesn't help when you're trying to win the British Open, when you have got to play a shot when danger is everywhere and everything depends on it. Maybe I should write a book on how to not miss a shot in a play-off and still shoot one-over. It's the way it is. I guess it's not news in my life. I just have to move on and, hopefully, do better next time."

It was a poignant declaration, and the more so when you considered his fate after Harrington had double-bogeyed the 18th hole in regular play. After that nerve-stretching wait, Garcia's second shot found the bunker but his sand shot was to eight feet and his putt lipped the cup. This was the killing denouement for Garcia after the linksland that conspired to destroy the sporting life and reputation of Jean Van de Velde eight years ago showed that it also had the power to bestow mercy. That, and the deepest test of a golfer's will and courage, for a little while seemed to be the salvation of the imperilled career of Garcia.

It was anyway, what he most wanted to believe when it first became clear that he had been brought back from the dead by Harrington's two visits to the waters of Barry Burn. The trouble was that if Carnoustie could forgive Garcia his latest loss of will, it could not guarantee the end of his nightmare.

In the final play-off drama one truth could not be avoided. Harrington had recovered his nerve and seized his moment ­ and left his opponent with recriminations that could last as long as he goes out to play the great tournaments.

The impact on Garcia must now be a matter of pessimistic speculation. In the more critical corners of his sport the conviction was absolute. It was that winning yesterday was something he just had to do.

If he didn't, the chances were his morale would be left in permanent wreckage. However it ended, though, Garcia could cling on to one extremely valuable solace. His eight-footer to win his first major ­ and perhaps release a whole floodtide of repressed brilliance when the big issues came into dispute ­ did not fail because of a faltering heart. That has been the charge on so many occasions when a fusillade of virtuoso shots has failed to yield a great prize. But not now. For a heart-wrenching moment Garcia believed he had indeed reached his point of deliverance.

Had it been so, Garcia would have finally outrun the question that has never been far away from each failure to capitalise on his virtuosity. For all his talent, did he really have the cojones to win the big ones?

This may not be a word heard regularly in the more genteel corners of the clubhouse, but from where Severiano Ballesteros, and Garcia at a 20-year interval, emerged as challengers for the title of the world's most exciting player, it is employed as a matter of course.

Yes, they say, he has all the ability in the world. But, hombre, does he have cojones? Does he have the balls? That was the question that haunted Garcia into the dusk here ­ and from as early as the fifth hole, when he made his first bogey since the 11th hole two days earlier, it threatened a result which in its way was every bit as harrowing as the collapse of Van de Velde.

In some career-devastating ways the prospect of defeat for Garcia was even worse. Van de Velde was a journeyman who sprang out of obscurity and then made a farce of his unexpected distinction. Garcia had for so long been seen as the one potential threat to the dominance of Tiger Woods. He had been the player with a multitude of talents and a scarcity of nerve.

The consensus in the Carnoustie locker room was indeed harsh. It said that this was the one Sergio had to win. This was the one when his nerve had to hold. This was the time when he had to grow up in a way that could make something of the future. On his first brisk walk towards his destiny Garcia's nerve had plainly held. He parred the first two holes with some ease and then birdied the third with some panache.

Perhaps there would be no shortfall of the confidence that had always been the last, elusive dimension to what had been considered by so many as a certain march into serious competition with Woods.

But then, with sickening punctuality, the old desperation returned. He bogeyed the fifth and then licked his lips and tightened his expression.In the end Garcia had to accept that everything still lay before him. It was still all there for him to win, whatever the disposition of Carnoustie, its whims and treacheries.

For Garcia now, though, there is the bitter truth that when Carnoustie allowed the fight to be redrawn, when, after four days, everything was still left in the balance, it was Harrington who made the most of his reprieve. Here, and maybe it will last for ever, was the heart of Sergio Garcia's pain.

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