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Garcia delighted at clutch performance

Sergio Garcia is looking forward to the Ryder Cup © PA Photos

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Sergio Garcia believes he has shown he has the ability to produce when it matters most, after guaranteeing his place at the Ryder Cup with his first PGA Tour victory in four years.

Garcia won the Wyndham Championship on Monday to ensure he will qualify automatically for Europe's team for the three-day event at Medinah in September, just a week before the qualification process draws to a conclusion.

And the Spaniard, who had to perform similarly miraculously to qualify for the US Open and Open Championship last year, believes he has discovered the ability to play his best when the pressure is on.

"It's great, definitely a double satisfaction," Garcia said, when asked what it meant to win and qualify for the Ryder Cup. "You know, I think there were a lot of things going on.

"It shows a lot to me. I kind of did it last year, too, in Germany when I needed to play really, really well to get into the British Open, which is my favourite tournament, and almost won there and then got myself into the Open.

"Now this year, here, this will secure my spot in the Ryder Cup team. And winning is always nice. So, you know, it means quite a bit."

Garcia holds a stellar Ryder Cup record but has endured a difficult time on the course in recent years, with his often-questioned mentality seeing him struggle for form and contentment on the course. Garcia suggested that he had learned a lot from his week in Greensboro, however.

Garcia only met his caddie for the week a few hours before his first round of the week, and as a result decided which clubs to hit and read almost all of his putts himself. While he won't be taking the caddie with him to next week's Barclays Championship, he admitted the experience had been helpful.

"Caddies are great but sometimes I feel like I depend too much on them," Garcia revealed. "It's the way I am and sometimes instead of making a decision myself I would wait for the caddie to make a decision for me and then maybe I don't feel comfortable with that and still try to do it.

"So what I wanted was to start making decisions for myself, right and wrong. Don't get me wrong, not all my decisions were good this week. I obviously misread some putts and I hit a couple wrong clubs here and there.

"But at least I was pretty much 100 per cent committed to most of my decisions and that was nice to see.

"So I'll probably keep working with myself and my own confidence and then at the end of the year I'll probably try to get a new caddie and see where we go from there."

When asked if his caddie for the week at Wyndham, local resident David Faircloth, would stay on, Garcia revealed he would be let go with a 100 per cent winning record.

"No," he said. "He's going to be happy with what he gets [in payment]. Obviously he's not going to get what a normal caddie would get because his job was fairly easy!"

As a result of his win in North Carolina, Garcia climbed 12 places to No. 17 in the latest world rankings - while the man he knocked out of the Ryder Cup qualification spots, Ian Poulter, slips to 23rd.

"Congrats to Sergio winning today," Poulter said on Twitter. "Great for the Ryder Cup. I guess it's the waiting game now. Not long to wait though. I will know Sunday."

World Rankings: 1. Rory McIlroy (NIR), 2. Luke Donald (ENG), 3. Tiger Woods (USA), 4. Lee Westwood (ENG), 5. Webb Simpson (USA), 6. Adam Scott (USA), 7. Bubba Watson (USA), 8. Justin Rose (ENG), 9. Jason Dufner (USA), 10. Steve Stricker (USA), 11. Matt Kuchar (USA), 12. Keegan Bradley (USA), 13. Graeme McDowell (NIR), 14. Zach Johnson (USA), 15. Hunter Mahan (USA), 16. Louis Oosthuizen (SAF), 17. Sergio Garcia (ESP), 18. Ernie Els (SAF), 19. Dustin Johnson (USA), 20. Phil Mickelson (USA).

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