SERGIO GARCIA STILL GRIPPIN‘ AND RIPPIN’ (REPORTERS): Sergio Garcia, still searching for a Major win (and his first Tour victory since 2005) scorched Carnoustie for a 65 Thursday to lead The Open. But our favorite gripping-gripping-gripping … AND ripping Spaniard apparently still has the temperament of a hummingbird that just tapped a Red Bull.

Garcia is employing a belly putter this week on Eastern Scotland’s wind-swept greenery. And he provided this reax after round one when a reporter noted no major winner has ever used such equipment: “You shouldn’t say that. That’s no good. You guys are always trying to find something, you know. A European hasn’t won in so many years, nobody has won with a belly putter and this and that. I’m just going to go — you know, if I play like I played today and I putt like I putted today, maybe that will change soon. I don’t care, I really don’t.

“Like I said before, it’s just about getting the ball in the hole. If I have to use, I don’t know, whatever, a plastic bag to get in the hole, I’ll use whatever. So it doesn’t matter. It’s just stats and stupid little things that you guys like to talk about.”

Yep, sounds like the same jittery chap who cried to his Mother after an 89-83 run at Carnoustie in 2001. And who collapsed during the final round of last year’s Open at Royal Liverpool (while paired with Tiger Woods).

We don’t know what was worse that day, Garcia’s leaderboard vanishing act or the off-color clothes he chose to traipse the links in.

Garcia to GOLF DIGEST on urine-inspired ensemble: “I don’t care. If I feel like wearing that again, I will. I don’t apologize for my clothes. There are a lot of bad dressers in golf, and I don’t think I’m one of them. There are a lot of bad dressers in every business.“