Meet The NFL Version of Masters Champion Sergio Garcia
By Erik Lambert
The NFL is filled with plenty of players who went through life and never got to experience championship success in their careers.
That’s the hard reality of the game. Not everybody gets to seize the ring. At the same time, there are those rare cases where player jilted for years finally reaches the mountaintop. Often they had to endure the most painful of climbs to get there. Frequent close calls and unrelenting heartbreak. It didn’t seem to matter how well they played. Something always seemed to go against them when it matter most.
It’s how top pro golfer Sergio Garcia felt for over a decade. Despite being one of the best in the world, the native Spaniard endured a string of agonizing close calls. From 1999 through 2014 he finished second in four major championships and third in another. He was the man who replaced Phil Mickelson as the bridesmaid of professional golf. Nobody ever thought he’d seal the deal.
Then the 2017 Masters happened as Garcia overcame a sudden death playoff to finally validate his incredible talent.
The man who understands that feeling
If there ever was an NFL version of Garcia it has to be Hall of Fame quarterback John Elway. By now most football fans know the story. Between the 1980s and 1990s he was one of the two or three best quarterbacks in the game. A physical marvel with a cannon arm who kept pulling his Denver Broncos out of with clutch late comebacks. In spite of that brilliance though, his championship dream were constantly crushed.
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In a four-year span Elway lost three Super Bowls. Each one by a bigger margin than before. By the year 1997, he was 37-years old coming off a monumental upset loss to the upstart Jacksonville Jaguars. By that point nobody thought he’d fulfill his dream. Then Denver fought their way to the Super Bowl and miraculously stunned the defending champion Green Bay Packer to get him over the hump. It was one of the most emotionally satisfying win in NFL history.
On that fateful day, Elway knew exactly how Sergio feels right now.