<\/p>\n
LA ROMANA, DOMINICAN REPULIC – JANUARY 17: Jorge Garcia from Venezuela swings at hole 1 during Final Day of 2016 Latin America Amateur Championship at Teeth of the Dog, Casa de Campo in La Romana, Dominican Republic on January 17, 2016. (Photo by Santiago Vidal\/LatinContent via Getty Images)<\/p>\n
LatinContent via Getty Images<\/p>\n
But Garcia\u2019s lack of length \u2013 his nickname is \u201cPichu,\u201d Spanish for \u201clittle one\u201d \u2013 eventually caught up with him. He posted seven top-25s as a freshman and finished runner-up at the Latin America Amateur in 2016, then nosedived after a solid sophomore fall. Halfway through his junior campaign, Garcia opted to transfer to Barry, a prestigious D-II program in Miami Shores.<\/p>\n
\u201cBeing from Venezuela, I\u2019m very grateful for all the opportunities that I\u2019ve had to play and compete in this game,\u201d Garcia said. \u201cObviously, going to one of the biggest schools in the country in Florida, the facilities and the opportunities you get are amazing. But my personal experience, I feel like I stalled a little bit there. \u2026 I didn\u2019t feel like I was getting much better.\u201d<\/p>\n
Garcia could\u2019ve found another D-I home, but he wanted to rediscover his game in the comforts of a place where he knew he could get better \u2013 and he did, twice finishing runner-up at the NCAA Championship and capturing the Jack Nicklaus Award as the top player in D-II as a senior.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat last year and a half, I found a lot of good stuff, and I got back to playing really good golf,\u201d said Garcia, who advanced to final stage of 2019 Korn Ferry Tour Q-School right out of college, though failed to earn status.<\/p>\n
This week marks Garcia\u2019s first final stage in six years, on either side of the pond. He\u2019s missed at second stage by a single shot on three different occasions, once in the U.S. (2022) and twice at DP World Tour Q-School (2024 and 2025). That close-call three years ago especially hurt considering Garcia was playing arguably the best golf of his life and had won first stage by five shots.<\/p>\n
Relegated to mini-tours, Garcia took up several odd jobs to fund his journey, including caddying and as muscle for an international moving company that his wife, Nicole, worked for; Garcia took a few shifts per month for about two years. He also coaches a few junior players, including a 16-year-old girl in Venezuela who hopes to play collegiately.<\/p>\n
\u201cSpending the past four summers in Pinehurst for U.S. Kids [World Championships], that\u2019s where I started,\u201d Garcia said, \u201cso it\u2019s definitely given me a different perspective and shown me just how far I\u2019ve come. It\u2019s been a long road.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pivotal for Garcia was three sponsor exemptions he received on the Gira de Golf Professional Mexicana, a tour in Mexico that features $100,000 purses and pro-ams while sometimes attracting Korn Ferry Tour pros on off weeks. Garcia missed all three cuts, but he returned in Summer 2024 a much-improved ball-striker, thanks to work with coach Juan Pina, and won the Q-School. He\u2019s since registered eight top-25 finishes and just one missed cut in 10 starts. His best finish, a T-5, came back in September.<\/p>\n
Part of Garcia\u2019s reasoning for playing the Mexican tour is to simulate the high-level tours \u2013 no carts, caddies, long pants, etc. \u2013 so that he\u2019s ready when his opportunity finally comes. No, the dream is not done yet.<\/p>\n
\u201cI haven\u2019t had all the success as a pro like I did in junior golf, but one of things I love about golf is the grind and learning how to get better and trying new things and always finding a way,\u201d Garcia said. \u201cI think it\u2019s just in my D.N.A. to go out there and try again the next day.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In nearly six years as a pro, Jorge Garcia has never played a Korn Ferry Tour event. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":341266,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71],"tags":[427,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-341265","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-golf","9":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341265","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=341265"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341265\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/341266"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=341265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=341265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=341265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}