Garcia hoping a return to European soil will spark an upturn in form for BMW

Sergio Garcia was runner-up in the 2017 BMW International Open at Golfclub München Eichenried, and is looking to playing in Germany after some five months in the States.
Picture by GETTY IMAGES.

SERGIO Garcia hopes that a return to Europe will help rekindle his early-season form as he prepares to tee it up at the BMW International Open, at Golfclub München Eichenried.

The Spaniard made an encouraging start to the 2019 European Tour season, with four top six finishes, including a tied third result at the Omega Dubai Desert Classic in January and a share of fifth at the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play.

Making his 11th appearance at the BMW International Open, Garcia has been a runner-up at this event at this venue twice, most recently in 2017 when he finished one stroke behind Andres Romero.

Garcia said: “I always enjoy the BMW events – I think they do an amazing job. Every single event you see from BMW is like a theme and you can see how much effort they put into the build-up of the tournaments and then actually the tournament itself. It is good fun.

“I love Munich and Germany. I’ve done well here and it’s always good fun to come back to places that you enjoy and you’ve done well before.

“I have done well at this golf course. I think it’s going to play a tiny bit different this year with the new greens – a little bit firmer.

“A few new pin positions here and there that we haven’t seen in the past. It’s going to be interesting to see how everything comes across.”

“I’ve obviously had some good moments throughout the year. The last month or so, it’s been a little bit more down than I wanted.

“I had two nice rounds last week, and then struggled a little bit on the weekend. But we’ll see. You know, keep working hard on it.

“Hopefully I feel something that kind of helps me get a little bit more confidence out there and you know, hit the ball a little bit better and kind of get back to some good form.

“It’s nice to be back in Europe, too, after pretty much five months in the US. Nice to be back on European soil, and we’ll try to build up on some good momentum.”

One year on from his runner-up finish at last year’s BMW International Open, Thorbjørn Olesen believes there is no better place than Munich to kick-start his season.

The Dane carded the lowest round in this tournament’s history, an 11-under par round of 61 at Golf Club Gut Lärchenhof, in Pulheim, narrowly missing out on a second victory in 2018, finishing one stroke behind Matt Wallace.

Olesen’s run of results after his first Rolex Series win at the Italian Open, just three weeks before his runner-up finish at last year’s BMW International Open, saw him earn a place in the 2018 Ryder Cup side, which emerged victorious at Le Golf National.P

Olesen said: “I’ve been struggling a bit to be honest. So it’s definitely time to change it around – I couldn’t find a better place to do it than here in Munich. Hopefully I can turn the season around this week and play well from here.

“I always love coming back here to the BMW International. Obviously, I played pretty well last year.

“I had a bad Saturday but then came strongly back on Sunday and was in contention. So yeah, there’s a lot of good memories. Been in Munich quite a few times now and always love coming back here.”