AUGUSTA, Ga. — He came onto the American scene in 1999, a smiling Spaniard, skipping and running and jumping for joy down the 16th fairway at Medinah, a 19-year-old rookie chasing his close-your-eyes-and-swing shot from behind a tree and chasing a 23-year-old Tiger Woods, who’d win his second major and give the youthful Sergio Garcia a dose of what would become a pattern: a second-place finish in a major championship.

During the next almost 20 years he’s become golf’s tortured soul, a polo-shirted Don Quixote who’d finish no better than second against every major windmill he’d battle. Sergio Garcia earned 18 international victories, nine on the PGA tour. But in majors? Nada-for-73.

Sometimes, he got beaten. But often, he lost majors pouting. He lost them by fretting over shots in his rearview mirror. He lost them while cursing the course and the fates.

The kid they called El Niño grew up in golf’s spotlight, a champion in Spain when he was 14 and a major championship contender before he’d ever bought a razor. But on a blue-skied Sunday at Augusta National, a 37-year-old grownup, recently engaged and speaking all week of learning patience and acceptance, took whatever golf and Justin Rose dished out and won the 2017 Masters with a 14-foot birdie putt on the first playoff hole.

El grande.

He hugged Rose, a fitting end to a 19-hole battle and an 18-year quest. He pumped his fist. He did a watered down version of the Medinah Trot. He blew a kiss to the cheering patrons as a chorus of “Ser-gi-o!, Ser-gi-o!” painted the evening air. Then he squatted and punched his fist into
the green, and rose to blow another kiss and to accept one from Angela Akins, who he’ll marry in July.

It was a night for kisses. A night for margaritas.

But first, what was ‘The Best Player To Have Most Recently Won A Major’ thinking as he bent his knees and closed his eyes? What was he thinking in those few moments after his duel with Rose and with the course and with the nature of golf had ended?

“So many things were running through my mind: everybody that supported me, my moments that unfortunately didn’t go the way I wanted, some moments at Augusta that I haven’t enjoyed as much as I should have, how…,” he paused here, then said, “stupid I was fighting against it. Some things, you can’t fight.

“You mean, like possibly…golf?

“A lot of people are helping me work on trying to accept things,” he saidSaturday after his 2-under 70 pushed him into a 2-way tie with Rose for first at 6-under. “I’m calmer now. Things can happen anywhere; that’s part of golf. Accepting that is easier said than done, but I’ve got to accept the good with the bad and move on.”

Good thing he did. Sunday at Augusta National, Rose, the 2013 U.S. Open champion, gave Garcia all he could handle. Rose had walked off No. 3 green with a three-putt bogey, three shots behind Garcia, who seemed in control.

But then the Englishman birdied 6, 7 and 8 while Garcia scrambled for pars, and Rose took a one-stroke lead on 10 with a par while Garcia scrambled for a bogey.

This was beginning to look familiar…

By this time, it was a two-horse race. The Cavalcade of Stars leaderboard when the day began had surprisingly, considering the talent involved and the perfect weather, faded to Off Broadway. American rock stars Jordan Spieth and Rickie Fowler, playing in the second-to-lastgroup, wobbled their way to a 75 and 76 and ended the day in a tie for 11th place at 1-under. Silent assassin Ryan Moore, the U.S. Ryder Cup hero, played in the next group with Charley Hoffman, whose opening-round 65 in the brutal cold of a vicious windstorm was as good a round in those conditions as you could hope to see.

Sunday, Moore shot 74, and Hoffman, in weather crystal clear, shot 78.

If not for Matt Kutcher, the Europeans’ Ryder Cup team would have been planting flags down 18 fairway. Six birdies and a hole-in-one on 16vaulted Matt Kuchar to a 67, tied with Hideki Matsuyama for the day’s low round.

Kucher started the day even par and stepped over various faltering Americans until he was in third place when he walked off 18 at minus-5.He would finish fourth, a stroke behind Charl Schwartzel, who shot 68 –33 on the back — to finish all alone in third at minus-6.

As the leaderboard took on a United Nations flavor, Garcia, based on history, should have been flying his flag at half-staff. Why? Because the Masters was basically over at 13. Rose was up by 2 and Garcia had driven it left, into the trees, as he’d done on 10. On 13, with Rose waiting patiently in the fairway after a solid drive, Garcia took a penalty stroke and dropped after retrieving his ball from beneath a bush. The question now wasn’t whether or not Garcia would lose. Of course he would. With the way he was losing drives, the question was whether or not he’d need a compass and a pack mule to finish the round.

But here, a new Sergio was born. El Focusedo. El Patiento. El Matureo.

“It’s not that I won,” he said later in his green jacket. “I’m more proud this week of the way I acted, of my mentality. I told myself to stay positive. In the past, on 13, I’d have said, ‘Why didn’t that go through the trees?,’ or ‘Noooooooo!’ to my caddie. Something. Instead I said, ‘If that’s what’s supposed to happen, OK. Let’s see if we can make 5 here, and if not, we can do our best and we can shake Justin’s hand and congratulate him on winning.’”

Garcia chipped out and got up and down for par. Rose’s second putt from five feet slipped past the hole. What had looked like a one-sided affair resulted in two pars. The Sergio Center had held. Then Garcia cut the lead to a single stroke when he birdied 14 and Rose bogeyed.

It turned just that quickly. The par-5 15th was the exclamation point.

Rose birdied, but Garcia from 189 yards with a slight wind at his back hit “one of my best 8-irons of the week,” he said. It shook the pin and left him a 12-footer for eagle that he made — the putt barely got to the cup — to square things at minus-9.

Rose had the longer birdie putt at 16, and made it. Garcia hit a putt he would later describe as “yuck!” Rose birdie, Sergio par. Rose led by 1 with two to play.

On 17, Rose’s couldn’t get up and down for a par, which Garcia made by two-putting after he’d placed his approach 20 feet below the hole. Drama, you say? Agreed. Tie match going into 18, where each player barely missed on tricky birdie putts, Rose from eight feet and Garcia from 6. All square at 9-under and 279.

The playoff began on the 18th tee box and would end on that hole’s green.

Garcia’s drive was true. Rose drove right and underneath a magnolia tree, where all he could do was chip out and leave him a 180-yard approach.“Just trying to make a 4,” he said.

But Garcia figured that waiting 18 years for a major was long enough. From 145 yards, he hit a 9-iron to 14 feet, made the putt, scored a birdie,and won the Masters.“I’m sure Seve helped a little bit,” Garcia said.

Seve. That would be two-time Masters champion Seve Ballesteros, who died of brain cancer in 2004. He would have been 60 Sunday. Ballesteros and Jose Marie Olazabal, another two-time Masters champion, are Spaniards and Garcia’s golf heroes. Olazabal sent Garcia a note of encouragement this week. And you wonder if Garcia’s big putt on 15, the one that barely crept into the cup, was aided by a breath from heaven.