Sergio Garcia's feeling good about the season

There is a lightness in Sergio Garcia’s step that hasn’t been there in a while. It could translate into a serious run at becoming the third Spaniard to win the Masters Tournament.

Garcia is “feeling good, happy and enjoying what I do,” which has led to what he calls a “beautiful start” to the season.

He’s thrilled to have a young nephew and a new girlfriend, Katharina Boehm, a German who played golf at College of Charleston.

“The people I have around me make things easier for me,” Garcia said.

“When things off the golf course are on good terms, it is a little easier to concentrate when you don’t have too many things in your head,” Garcia said. “I am very fortunate with Kati (Boehm) and with my family and all those around me, so it’s great to be playing well and to be in this winning situation with the goal now to keep improving.”

In his first four starts this year, Garcia had a win at Qatar and a runner-up finish.

“I still feel like I can do better, and that is the goal,” Garcia said.

He’s had a turbulent relationship with Augusta National Golf Club, which he says is “probably not my most favorite place.”

In 15 Masters starts, Garcia has had some low rounds (seven in the 60s, including two 66s) and high ones (a 79 and four 78s). His best finish has been a tie for fourth in 2004.

“But we do try to enjoy it as much as we can every time we come here,” Garcia said. “Sometimes it comes out better than others.”

With his personal life in good shape, he might be able to contend for his first green jacket. If he were to win, it would be the fifth Masters victory by a Spaniard. The late Seve Ballesteros won it in 1980 and 1983 and Jose Maria Olazabal won it in 1994 and 1999.

“I think that when things off the golf course are going well and everything, it’s calm and where I want it to be, more or less,” Garcia said. “It’s obviously easier to go on the course and think about what you want to do on the course. Obviously, if you’re struggling a little bit outside, there’s a lot more things going in your head.”

Things weren’t going so great off the course for Garcia in late May after a tough loss to Tiger Woods at the Players Championship. At a European Tour dinner, Garcia joked he would have Woods, with whom he’s had a chilly relationship, over for dinner at the upcoming U.S. Open and said, “We will serve fried chicken.”

Garcia quickly apologized.

“It was a mistake, and I felt bad for it,” Garcia said.

In mid-December, Garcia won for the first time in a year, taking the Asian Tour’s Thailand Golf Championship by beating red-hot Henrik Stenson.

“It’s just hard work and confidence in yourself,” he said of his recent sharp play.

Garcia made headlines again in late February when he conceded an 18-foot birdie putt to Rickie Fowler in the Match Play Championship on the seventh hole at Dove Mountain. Fowler then gave Garcia his 7-footer for a halve of the hole. In the end, Fowler won the third-round match 1-up.

Garcia said it was done in an act of sportsmanship because he had slowed play because of a ruling involving bees around his ball on the previous hole.

“I felt like if I would have taken just one drop because of the bees, I would have been fine with it,”Garcia said, “but I took one and then I took another one because I still didn’t feel comfortable, and I just felt like I probably – it’s as simple as that. I feel like I took too much time.”

At last year’s Masters, it didn’t take Garcia long to show that he’d come to play. Garcia tied for the first-round lead with 66. He followed that with rounds of 76-73-70 and finished tied for eighth.

Garcia was the last player to register in Tournament Headquarters for the 2013 Masters, doing so Wednesday. It led some to believe that he didn’t play a practice round before his opening 66, but he said later that he played nine holes on Tuesday and nine on Wednesday.

Not that Masters practice rounds matter that much, he said. Garcia says no course among the majors changes the way it’s played from Wednesday to Thursday’s first round more than Augusta National. The reason? The advanced technology at the course, such as the SubAir system that determines the dryness of the greens.

“Usually the British Open, if it’s firm, it’s already firm on Wednesday,” he said. “It might get a little bit firmer, but not that much. The U.S. Open, unless you go to a golf course where you know they have the air pumps on the green, it’s difficult to make it change as much as you can at Augusta with all the technology they have on the golf course.”

That’s why Garcia no longer takes scouting trips to Augusta National.

“I did it in the past, but quite a long ways back,” he said. “I think it’s nice to see it, but it’s never going to be playing as close as the tournament, as it’s going to be playing in the tournament. The course can change so much from (just before the start of the tournament), so imagine from three weeks before to tournament play.”