Sergio García broke his driver on No. 2 at Augusta National on Sunday after an outburst on the tee box and became the first player to receive a code-of-conduct warning at the Masters. The 2017 champion slammed his club into the turf twice after a shot that ended up in a bunker, then hit the driver against a cooler and snapped the head off the shaft.
Geoff Yang, the chairman of the competitions committee, spoke to García on the fourth tee and issued the warning. Under the Rules of Golf, he was not allowed to replace the driver because it had been damaged through abuse. García shot a 3-over 75 and finished at 8 over for the tournament, walking off the green as the 52nd of the 54 players who made the cut.
García did not try to explain it away. “I've been frustrated through the year,” he said. “Yeah, just obviously not super proud of it, but sometimes it happens.”
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The moment stood out because the Masters is the first event to use the PGA Tour’s developing code-of-conduct policy, according to a person involved in the process, with the PGA Championship and likely the other two majors also planning to use it. That means García’s warning was not just a personal reprimand; it was the first real test of a new system built to police behavior in competition.
It also fit a pattern. García broke his driver in the final round of the Open Championship at Royal Portrush in Northern Ireland last year after slamming it into the ground on the second hole. He was disqualified in 2019 at the Saudi International for damaging greens in frustration. Long before that, he angrily kicked off his shoe during a tee shot at the World Match Play in 2001 and nearly struck an official, and he spit into a cup during a World Golf Championship at Doral after three-putting.
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After the damage on No. 2, García carried Jon Rahm’s bag while Rahm’s caddie raked the bunker, and the crowd applauded when Rahm took the bag back and started carrying it himself. For a player who won the Masters in 2017, the 2022 tie for 23rd now looks like an outlier in a run of missed cuts and clipped finishes, and Sunday’s warning only sharpened the sense that Augusta has become a harder stage for him to manage than it once was.
