Garcia taking a two-month break

Sergio Garcia has announced that he will take a two-month break from competitive golf after this week's US PGA Championship.

The 30-year-old Spaniard, who has not won a tour title in nearly two years, will miss the FedEx Cup playoffs on the PGA Tour and the final Ryder Cup qualifying event on the European Tour as a result.

The decision means that Garcia would have to finish among the top three at Whistling Straits if he is to have any chance of qualifying for the European team via the points list.

But there is a question about whether he wants to qualify anyway, for if he sticks to his decision not play in any competitions duruing his two month sabatical, that would surely rule him out.

He has confirmed that he will not return to competition until the end of October at the Castellon Masters on his home course in Spain.

But the Ryder Cup is set to be played from October 1 to 3 so he seems to have ruled himself out of it.

Monty is going to want a proven bunch of revved-up, in-form competitors heading into the Celtic Manor battle, not someone of whom there is no guarantee that his very meadiocre game of this past season has improved sufficiently for him to justify a Ryder Cup berth.

"It's been a long year," Garcia said after a 70 in the Bridgestone Invitational. "I haven't had a nice, long break my whole career."

Garcia said he had told the Scot of his intentions.

"I've talked to him," Garcia said. "He knows what I'm planning to do."

The Spaniard, who has played in every Ryder Cup match since he was a 19-year-old at Brookline in 1999, has an excellent career record of 14-6-4 in the Ryder Cup and he has never lost a foursomes match.

This year, however, has left Montgomerie with Europe's strongest collection of players ever.

The group in the running for the three wild card picks could include Padraig Harrington, Justin Rose, Paul Casey and Martin Kaymer.