Sergio Garcia tipped his cap to the wives in revealing recent repairs to his fractured friendship with Rory McIlroy.

Garcia detailed the turn of events in Valderrama on Wednesday. He reached out to McIlroy following a brief but cordial exchange between his wife, Angela, and McIlory’s wife, Erica, at the U.S. Open.

“I think that at the end of the day, the important thing is that we got together, we talked, we had a great conversation with two friends that wanted to get back to that spot,” García said Wednesday at LIV Golf Andalucía. “And that’s the most important thing.”

Longtime friends and Ryder Cup teammates, Garcia and McIlroy met during the major in Los Angeles earlier this month and talked through the challenges that arose from the establishment of LIV Golf. Garcia left for the rival tour and McIlroy stood tall as the outspoken loyalist of the PGA Tour.

Garcia said he wishes the PGA-LIV-DP World Tour merge would have happened “a year and a half ago when we all started.” A unified professional circuit would have avoided the kind of fence-mending Garcia and McIlroy went through.

“I have been thinking about it for a while, but I wasn’t totally sure about it,” Garcia said. “And when I saw that reaction from him, he kind of gave me the go-ahead to kind of get closer and we had a great chat.”

Garcia, who missed the cut at the Masters in April, finished 27th at the U.S. Open. He said he left California with a bounce in his step, but not only because because he played well.

“… More than anything, because I gained a friend back, a friend that I kind of felt like I lost in the last year or so,” Garcia said. “We talked and we had a great conversation, and I feel like I have that friend back, and that to me means a lot. That’s a very positive thing.”

–Field Level Media