Move over Tiger-mania, here's 'El Nino'

He throws down challenges to Tiger Woods on his home turf, takes calls from the prime minister of Spain and sends teen-age girls squealing like he's a rock star.

Sergio Garcia turned the 81st PGA Championship into his own coming-out party. Sure, Woods won his second major, but it was the 19-year-old Spanish phenom who made the crowd roar.

"I'm a little unhappy I didn't win, but inside of me, I feel like I won," he said today after a closing 1-under 71 left him one stroke behind Woods. "I don't know, with 19 years old, three months since I turned pro, you can't ask for any more."

No, he really can't.

When Garcia turned pro after earning the low-amateur honors at The Masters, he was hoping to do well, make the European Ryder Cup team and maybe win a tournament or two. He didn't expect to become a national sensation -- especially in a country that's not even his own.

His exuberance this week delighted the crowds at Medinah Country Club. Everything he did drew cheers, from his wide grins at the end of his rounds to his running leap across the 16th fairway after hitting from a knot of tree roots to the green. And when he took off his cap on the 18th green, putting it in his mouth so he could return the crowd's applause, the fans went crazy.

"First of all, I'd like to tell you that, well, the crowds were amazing," he said, still a little awed. "I have no words to say what they did to me. It looked like I was an American. Or more than that.

"I'd like to thank them and dedicate them this tournament because I really think they deserve it."

"El Nino" deserves some credit, too. Unlike Mike Weir, the third-round co-leader who collapsed while playing alongside Woods, Garcia loves the challenge of taking on the world's best player. His favorite Play Station game? Woods's golf game. He was disappointed he didn't play well enough so the two could be paired on the final day.

And when he made a 13-foot birdie putt on the 13th hole to go 11-under and close within three strokes of Woods, Garcia turned, looked back at Woods on the tee and tipped his cap.

"It wasn't, I don't know how to say, a bad thing," Garcia said. "I wanted him to know that I was still there and to show him that he had to finish well to win."

Woods almost didn't. He double-bogeyed the par-3 13th -- feeling the pressure, perhaps? -- and bogeyed the 16th as well. But Garcia bogeyed the par-4 15th, and couldn't pick up another stroke the rest of the way.

As he walked off the 18th green, he went over to Woods's mother and gave her a kiss. Then he walked into the trailer to hand in his scorecard, flashing the TV cameras a big grin and the perfect sound bite.

"Almost," he said.

Garcia hung around and waited for his new rival to finish, greeting him with a big hug. In six weeks, he hopes they'll meet again at the Ryder Cup.

"I said when I turned pro that I wanted to be the No. 1 golfer in the world," Garcia said. "And so I knew I was going to be a rival for Tiger. But I said that I want to be a rival, but always being friends like we did today."

Unlike Woods, who often finds his fame constraining, everything's a kick to Garcia these days. When he finished his news conference, his manager pulled him outside to take a phone call. No, it wasn't Mom and Dad on the line. It was Jose Maria Aznar, the prime minister of Spain.

As he talked, scuffing his shoe along the ground, three teen-aged girls stood a few feet away trying to get his attention. One girl bit her blue-polished fingernails when her friends told her Garcia "definitely saw you."

Garcia might have seen the girls. After this weekend, however, everyone's going to be watching him.

"The guy is obviously a huge talent," said Mark James, the European Ryder Cup captain. "It looks like he's going to be around for many years to come."

AP