Sergio Garcia. Bill Streicher-Imagn Images

Sergio Garcia throws epic tantrum during final round of 2026 Masters

By Clark Dalton | Last updated Apr 13, 2026 7:59 AM ET

Entering Sunday, Spanish golfer Sergio Garcia had no shot of winning the 2026 Masters, but he still made a scene on the final day of the tournament.

Garcia hit his tee shot into a bunker at the second hole tee box of Augusta National Golf Club in Georgia. He clearly knew it was an errant shot as he began smashing his driver on the ground and against a cooler. During the course of the tantrum, he broke the club by snapping its head.

The rules of golf state that a player cannot replace a club if they have abused it. That seemed to leave him even more outraged. To take out his frustration, he carried fellow Spaniard Jon Rahm's clubs while his caddie swept the sand bunker.

Some may have found Garcia's outburst amusing, but the tournament organizers didn't.

A whole series of events from Sergio Garcia earlier on Sunday at the Masters

Slams his driver in frustration
Breaks his driver against a cooler
Carries Jon Rahm's bag while Rahm's caddie tends to a bunker pic.twitter.com/he09pvWuv8
— ESPN (@espn) April 12, 2026

The Masters punished Sergio Garcia for his tantrum

Per ESPN, Masters chairman Geoff Yang spoke with Garcia at hole No. 4, issuing him a code-of-conduct warning, the first in the tournament's 93-year history.

The PGA Tour is implementing a stricter code of conduct in 2026 to keep short-tempered golfers like Garcia in check. At the final round of the 2025 British Open, he snapped his driver in half on hole No. 2 and played the rest of the day without the club. And he was disqualified from the 2019 Saudi International for damaging the greens.

Like the Masters, the other majors (the U.S. Open and British Open) operate independently of the PGA Tour, but they're expected to use its code of conduct.

After a tournament supervisor issues the first warning, a player can be subject to further penalties. A second violation results in a two-shot penalty, while a third leads to a disqualification. We'll see if the new rules help Garcia better control his temper. If he keeps playing poorly, they may not make a difference.

Garcia's last PGA Tour win was at the 2020 Sanderson Farms Championship, and he hasn't won a major since the 2017 Masters. Of course, he flipped to LIV Golf in 2022, but he has won just two events on that tour.

Entering Sunday, he had shot 221 (+8) and was 16 shots behind co-leaders Rory McIlroy and Cameron Young (-11). He shot a 75 during his final round.

Clark Dalton

Clark Dalton is a 2022 journalism graduate of the University of Texas at Austin. He gained experience in sports media over the past seven years — from live broadcasting and creating short films to podcasting and producing. In college, he wrote for The Daily Texan. He loves sports and enjoys hiking, kayaking and camping.

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