HIS is a most endearing image.

The year was 1999 and Sergio Garcia was up against Tiger Woods in the PGA Championship.

It was a duel to the death. And he finished second.

But that wasn't the story of the tournament.

Nor was it that Woods went on to win the event by a stroke - his second after the 1997 Masters.

Nor was it the fact that Garcia's prize money - US$378,000 ($509,000) - was more than what he had ever seen in all of his 19 years.

The story of the 1999 PGA Championship was the shot and the follow-up late in the final round.

For those who saw it on course at the Medinah Country Club or on TV, it stuck in the memory, like so many other good things in sport.

Remember, Cassius Clay taunting a flat-on-his-back Sonny Liston to get up and fight.

Bjorn Borg on his knees at Wimbledon after beating John McEnroe.

Mariano Rivera collapsing on the mound after the Yankees had beaten the Red Sox in the 2001 American League.

Back to that day in 1999, Garcia and Woods were locked together like two arm-wrestlers.

With that little golf ball up against a tree trunk and the green not to be seen from where he was, Garcia closed his eyes and let fly.

It was a low curving fade that quickly disappeared from view and ran up onto the green.

As his ball floated through the air, Garcia literally 'went after it'. With all the exuberance that his teenage legs could muster, he sprinted like crazy into the fairway.

Arms flailing, cheeks puffed, he then executed a scissor-kick to see just where his ball had landed.

We who saw it, talked about it for days after. It was, indeed, the story of the tournament - better than the one about Woods' second Major.

Come Sunday, those same fans will be watching and hoping to see another enduring image, that of Garcia lifting the Claret Jug - his first Major in the nine years that he has been trying.

If he does it - and many are willing to bet on it - he will become the second Spaniard, since Seve Ballesteros, to wear 'The Open' crown.

Ballesteros did it three times - 1979, 1984 and 1988.

But, more than anything, it will be yet another great sporting year for Spain.

Yes, Garcia is today one of the top name on the bookies ledgers, mainly on account of his results in the run-up to this Major.

Indeed, top British bookmakers have him at intimidating odds to win The Open - and it's getting shorter by the hour.

It's a fitting endorsement.

While we carry the image of Garcia as a teenager running over hill and dale while following the flight of a white ball, the reality is far from endearing.

The 'boy' is 28 and, while he has spent most of his professional years in the Top 10, he is golf's 'nearly man' in the Majors.

He finished second twice - in the 1999 PGA and at The Open last year. In 2005 he was third at the US Open and, in 2004, he tied for fourth at Augusta.

He is also one of golf's more colourful personalities.

He drives a Ferrari. He dates the 'upper crust' like Martina Hingis and Greg Norman's daughter Morgan-Leigh. And he's got a great personality.

TIGER SKINS

We saw it first hand when he was in Singapore for the 2002 Tiger Skins.

He didn't win. Padraig Harrington, incidentally the defending champion at The Open, did.

But Garcia won the

Mr Popularity stakes hands down and it will be this fan base who will celebrate on Sunday should their 'Mr Cool' win his first Major.

The thing is, Garcia plans could be derailed - by another Spaniard.

While Phil Mickelson, Jim Furyk, Justin Rose and Adam Scott have been freely touted as possible winners, Spain's other big golfing act, Miguel Angel Jimenez, has all the credentials to lift the Claret Jug.

Right now, the man the other golfers call 'The Mechanic' is the top European golfer and his showings in the season's two Majors have been impressive.

Eighth at the US Masters, the 44-year-old improved to finish fifth at the US Open last month.

A very much improved player, the cigar-chomping Jimenez is also on the bookmakers' shortlist and he could make it a Spanish quinella.

Now, wouldn't that be something - provided, of course, it's Garcia who lifts the Claret Jug. Another runner-up finish would be criminal.