Sergio Garcia, relaxed and rolling once again

We bust on Sergio Garcia all the time around here, but every so often he reminds us who exactly the multimillion-dollar world-traveling golf pro is, and who he isn't. 

In the second round at the Australian Masters, Garcia rolled in a putt that would have been five stories high had it been straight down. Now, after two rounds, Garcia is the only non-Aussie in the top 10, ranking alone in fourth with a 4-under, six strokes behind leader Adam Bland. (For the curious: Tiger Woods is 1-under.) It's a major turnaround for a guy who as recently as last month was in the curiously honorary position of assistant Ryder Cup captain.

So yes, Sergio is surging. However, as Golf Girl's Diary pointed out, there may well be a reason for his success: the as-yet-unnamed lovely lady who's been spotted accompanying Garcia around town. Makes sense, right? If the guy falls apart when breaking up with a girl, he must play better when he's in love, right? Whatever, we're veering into dangerously Lifetime TV-esque territory.

Anyway, good on ya, Sergio. Keep 'em in the fairway. (I'm being literal, but feel free to entendre that to death.)

Related: Adam Bland, Tiger Woods, Sergio Garcia

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Sergio Garcia misses cut in Spain, again sounds like he hates golf

Just a few days ago, we posted a story about Sergio Garcia and his current attitude about golf. The 30-year-old Spaniard had taken two months off of competitive golf to try and love it again, and was back at his hometown golf tournament ready to jump back on the pro golf pony.

Garcia even mentioned hoping to be number one in the world someday, a far cry from his tales of falling out of love with golf that forced him to take the hiatus.

But it didn't come so easy for Sergio. He missed the cut after rounds of 71-73, and was once again complaining about the passion he feels for the sport.

"It's tough for me especially missing the cut here. The way I putted I feel as though I am back to where I was when I left the game in the summer. It's very frustrating."

The bad putting he is referring to came mostly in the second round, when Garcia had five very short putts that he couldn't cash in, and he wasn't around on the weekend for his first tournament back since his missed cut at the PGA Championship.

Sure, not making the cut in an event your hosting has to be embarrassing and demoralizing, but it isn't the end of the world. He took a lot of time off from the game, and will have to get his sea legs back before he can fully compete on a top level.

That said, if you don't at least toy with the idea that Garcia could be using a long-putter by this time next year, you're crazy.

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Greg Norman reportedly engaged to be married once again

Say this for Greg Norman: The man doesn't give up.

Just six months after his divorce from Chris Evert, and after a divorce from his first wife that reportedly cost $103 million in the settlement, Norman announced that he's getting married once again.

According to the Daily Mail, the 55-year-old Shark is now engaged to Kirsten Kutner, a 41-year-old Australian interior designer. (No, he didn't propose to Martina Navratilova, though that would've been funny for so many reasons.)

So how'd Norman open negotiations? With a measly six-carat diamond ring. Not bad. But then, Norman knows how to blow it out; in addition to his nine-figure divorce settlement above for 25 years of marriage to first wife Laura, he also threw a $2 million-plus Bahamas wedding with Evert, and that marriage went south after just 15 months.

There's a dispute over why exactly things fell apart with Evert, and since it's marital brawling, you'd have a better chance of seeing Norman close out Augusta than get the true story. Regardless, we wish the happy couple all the good in the world. And, for the Shark's sake, we expect there'll be a bulletproof prenup.

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Tiger Woods likes his chances to win again this year

Another week, another Tiger Woods press conference, this one for the Chevron in December. (For the nitpickers, this was a teleconference; he wasn't actually at The Open Championship again, as the picture shows.) Still, it looks like they're settling back into the same basic routine of softball questions and by-the-numbers answers.

Even so, that kind of comforting familiarity has to be good news for Woods fans, who will no doubt eat up answers like this, to the question of whether he can win again this year:

"Well, my game's coming around," he said. "I know I have two more events prior to the Chevron event. Hopefully, I can get two more W's before I get to Chevron and see what happens."

And looking ahead to 2011, with all that nastiness of 2010 behind us? More good news, Tiger fans: "I will play more times than I did this year. I didn't quite play that many events this year, and I'd like to get back to a full playing schedule next year and be ready for the big events again. Certainly, hopefully, get more W's than I did this year."

Oh, and there was this: One journalist actually said "we miss you." Tiger, surely breaking that earnest journo's heart, did not in fact reply "I missed you too, snoogums." (He also didn't thank Brett Favre for taking some of the heat off him, but he probably should have.)

Finally, Woods noted that he's "at peace" now following the separation from former wife Elin. "Everyone's getting used to the new living conditions," Woods said. "The kids are adjusting. I think everyone's certainly more at peace, and so am I, too. I learned a lot about myself, and I learned how things went wrong, why they went wrong, and had to take a pretty deep and introspective look at myself, and there weren't a lot of things I liked about it. But I had to do it, and I did it and grateful that I did. I think that I come from a much better place, much more grounded place now than I ever have before."

Yes, yes, that's all well and good. But why will nobody ask the real question: Is Tiger Woods going to be in "The Hangover 2" or not? 

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David Duval will once again be a fully exempt PGA Tour member

You all know the story of David Duval. Four-time All-American. Struggled to get his first win on the PGA Tour. Finally broke through and became a fixture at the top, taking over the world No. 1 ranking from Tiger Woods in '99 after shooting 59 in the final round to win the Bob Hope Classic. British Open champion. Fell off the face of the earth.

Since Duval's fall from the top, there was never any question about his attempt to get back to golf. Yes, he took some time away after that British win because he admitted that he felt it would be something bigger, but for the past five years he has really tried to become a dominant golfer, defined by his second-place finish at the 2009 U.S. Open.

His game has been shaky, but this year, Duval was good enough. His second-place finish at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, along with last week's sixth place tie at the Frys.com Open means that Duval, a man that actually went back to Q-School last year in an attempt to become a full-time exempt golfer without the crutch of sponsor's exemptions, will be on tour again.

Duval is currently 99th on the PGA Tour money list, making just under a million dollars this year, but in typical fashion, most of his success came from those two events mentioned above. The 38-year-old Duval played 23 tournaments in 2010, and is in the field this week in Las Vegas, but can account for 76 percent of his earnings to Pebble Beach and the Frys.

But, nobody cares how you get there, as long as you can sneak into that top 125 on the money list.

Duval will get a chance to play at Sawgrass next season for the first time since 2006. He will have earned his spot in these tournaments for the first time since his five-year exemption ran out that same year, and who knows, like at Bethpage Black, four good rounds could mean Duval will be a PGA Tour winner once more.

All in all, Duval's story continues to inspire people. Sure, he isn't the same player that he used to be, but he keeps grinding and looking for the answer, finding it occasionally and reminding us just how good he used to be. Maybe next year, without the hassle of sending out those sponsor invitation letters, he can just focus on playing golf and having some fun.

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