Atlanta, GA -- Medical personnel and PGA officials report that Spanish golf star Sergio Garcia, known for his ceaseless pre-shot gripping routine, eventually passed away from severe malnutrition and dehydration.
Garcia was 23.
The tragic death took place at the recent Bell South Classic, held at the Tournament Players Club at Sugarloaf, Duluth, Georgia, while Garcia was preparing to tee off on the par-3 third hole. The few dedicated gallery members who remained -- this despite the many long days and nights that passed during his shot preparation -- claim that prior to dropping dead, the golfer looked gaunt and pallow, was swaying clumsily, and was muttering incoherently to himself in Spanish.
"Sergio's sudden passing is a great loss for the golf world, for the country of Spain, and for golf fans everywhere," said PGA spokesman Douglas Chapman. "But come to think of it, it wasn't all that sudden. He was setting up that tee shot for, what, six days, with no food or water? No wonder the guy just crumbled."
Chapman added: "I guess it was just God's way of saying, 'For fuck's sake, Sergio, just hit already, will ya?'"
Garcia burst onto the golf scene back in 1999 at the PGA Championship, where he finished one stroke behind Tiger Woods and wowed galleries with his infectious, enthusiastic play, especially his "shot-from-behind-the-tree" at 16, after which he sprinted up the fairway to follow the ball's flight.
However, in recent years, Garcia developed the ritualistic, obsessive-compulsive, time-and-space-halting habit of gripping and re-gripping prior to swinging -- commonly known as his "wiggle" -- a process that can take anywhere from thirty seconds to two minutes to, seemingly, seven months, driving television viewers across the country to the brink of near madness.
"My three-year-old daughter and I were watching the Bell South first round and she kept asking me, 'Daddy, why isn't that man hitting?'" said John Petruney, Creative Director at Arnold Worldwide, the Boston-area advertising agency for Titleist, for whom Garcia is -- was -- a spokesman. "I told her, 'Because Sergio's got severe mental problems, honey, and if he doesn't hit in the next three seconds I'm going to kick in the goddamn TV.' He could really get you worked up."
Garcia's exhaustive ritual did not just affect PGA viewing audiences.
"I can't tell you how many times I've wanted to throttle him," said a distraught Phil Mickelson, upon learning of the Spaniard's not-exactly-untimely passing. "And between you and me I sometimes wished he would just drop dead, to teach him a lesson that we can't wait around all week for him to hit."
"I guess he's doing the 'wiggle' in hell now," Mickelson concluded.
Caddy Frank Beneduci said on that fateful par-3, he considered trying to slip Garcia some food during what turned out to be his final pre-shot routine, but he didn't want to risk breaking the player's concentration.
"After I don't know how long -- four, five days? -- I noticed Sergio was looking a little woozy," said Beneduci. "And I remembered I had put a Zagnut Bar in his bag. But if you even breathe too loud when he's in the wiggle, he goes absolutely ballistic."
"That one, single candy bar might have saved him," he sighed. "But I was starving by that point myself, so, I thought 'Screw him, this nougaty, nutty goodness is all mine, baby.'"
An open-casket memorial service is scheduled for this Saturday. As a tribute to the fallen golfer, attendees will repeatedly adjust and readjust the position of Garcia's skeletal, embalmed corpse.
Garcia, in happier, non-starved-to-death times.
Candy bar that might have saved Garcia.