Sergio Garcia won his first tournament of 2013 while his girlfriend caddied for him

The embrace you see above is not something that normally happens between caddie and pro, but Sergio Garcia’s 2013 season was a bit peculiar even for his standards before teeing it up last week at the Thailand Golf Championships.

Taking a page right out of Patrick Reed’s book from earlier this season, Garcia asked his girlfriend, Katharina Boehm, to loop for him this week and it turned out to be the perfect move for the controversial PGA Tour star that won his first event all season on Sunday by four shots over the year’s best player, Henrik Stenson, thanks to a closing 68.

I would like to see Garcia do more of this stuff in the coming years. While we all have loved or hated Sergio at some point in his career (most of the love coming at Medinah, most of the hate coming after this), the biggest hangup with Sergio is just his inability to really connect with golf fans on an understandable level.

We seem to connect with guys like Graeme McDowell and Lee Westwood and even Jason Dufner, but with Sergio it has always seemed that he was a loose cannon that could blow up at any moment, and the moment we got excited about the way he was playing it was a final round blowup or a controversial moment that left us with a bad taste.

Hit a bad shot? Blame your playing partner. Fail to make a par on the final hole to win the British Open? Blame the kid raking the bunker.

Bringing Katharina in to loop seemed to make Garcia more relaxed, and it humanized him a bit. Sergio is an incredibly talented golfer that should have a major championship or two under his belt at this point in his career, but the nice thing about golf is that he has plenty of years left in the tank to compete at a very high level.

Maybe instead of always getting in his own way, Garcia should try a few more of these approaches and understand that while golf is a big deal, and winning seems to matter more than anything else, you can still have fun with the game that has brought you everything good in your life.

Now the important question; is it time to get Boehm fitted with a white jumpsuit for that tournament in April that we’re all already thinking about?

Devil Ball Golf – Golf – Yahoo Sports