How to Hit Your Irons Consistently with Sergio Garcia | LIV Lessons

Discover the secrets behind Sergio Garcia’s amazing ball-striking. Learn the key moves that make his swing so effective.

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[Applause] Hi, I’m Sergio Garcia, captain of Fireballs GC and 2017 Masters Champion. Welcome to my live lesson. Absolutely brilliant by Sergio Garcia. This was so close to an ace. The man to watch today, of course, Sergio Garcia. On this lesson, I’m going to give you some tips to make sure that you can improve your ball striking, one of the most important parts of our game. [Music] Hi everyone, here at the range. I’m here hitting mid irons. I got a six iron in my hand and uh I’m just going to show you a little bit what I go through, what I try to do to become a a good ball striker. You know, I think that’s, you know, that’s the goal for today. So, I’m going to try to give you a couple of tips to um to see if we can achieve that. So, obviously for me, there’s a a few things that I want to make sure that I do well. I think that setup is is obviously very important. So, sometimes my problem will be I’ll get a little low and a little open and then my body gets out of rhythm. So, for me, it’s important to make sure that my setup is good. It’s nice nice and uh nice and square. I try to make sure that this left knee doesn’t get behind. So, just make sure I have it locked in nicely there. A little bit uh a little bit forward. There’s different kinds of players. There’s There’s guys that sway a little bit more. I I try to stay on my on my left side pretty much as much as I can through through the shot. So, my weight is going to be a little bit more on the left leg than on the right. And I’m going to try to keep it there. So, good setup. Make sure I keep my height nicely. And I’m going to do that through the swing. You know, I want to make sure that I give myself my arms and my body room to swing. You know, if I if I start dipping down, then I have to do something to make sure I don’t hit the ball very heavy. So, I want to make sure that I keep my height, but then I throw my hands and my arms at it so I can, you know, I can reach down to the ball, you know. Let me hit one and then we can talk about it. So, like I said, good setup there. ball pretty much in the middle of the stance. Maybe a tiny bit forward with uh with the mid iron. Just nice setup and then just keep my height and finish nice and strong on the left side. That’s one of the most important things to make sure that you get through the ball. You know, sometimes you see a lot of people get in here and from here either it’s either going to be a block or if you let your hands go, it’s going to be a big hook. So, for me, those are some of the most important things to make sure that I’m here. Keep my height finish nice and strong on the left side. And you’re trying to get your body to look towards towards the target. You know, there’s obviously a few uh personal things that that my swing has. Um I mean, obviously I have one of the biggest lag you you see on tour. Uh even though my swing has definitely changed a little bit through the years as I gotten older and bigger. So when I was maybe 18, 19, my swing was a little bit more out, even more of a drop. as I got a little bit older and a little bit stronger, it was a little bit more difficult to control that. So, so what I did was I started swinging a little bit more, making sure that I swing a little bit more online here. you know, I still have that that movement which is we always kind of called it like pulling pulling the chain and pulling the chain down and and that’s what helps me get my hands in position here. You know, even though they go like here, when I pull down, then when when I’m right right in this in this area, my hands are right where where I want them to be. And from here, then I can just hit release and kind of go through You know, one of the most important things when it comes down to hitting irons is the strike. So obviously for me if I can keep my weight right on top of the ball and not move it too much, you know, I can I can get that consistency on the strike a lot better. And uh and that’s going to help me not only with the type of shot that I want to hit, but with the distance, you know, the the more consistent you are with your strike, the the more consistent you are with with your distance. and and then you can, you know, you can work on on your ball flight depending on the wind or something like that. But that’s probably one of the most important things, you know, making sure that you striking the ball consistently and solid. So there keep the weight there. And then like I said earlier, make sure you finish nice and strong on your left side. I mean, for me personally, I love everything that you can do with with your irons, you know, the different spins that you can put on. But it all it all starts with with a good setup with a good uh base work, I guess. U make sure that your stability is good. So then your contact can be as good as possible. When you’re able to to get good contact over and over on on on the golf ball with your irons, then you can you can play with ball flights, you can play with spin, you can play with, you know, right to left, left to right, all those kind of things. And and it gives you so many options going into into different different greens. So I think it’s uh you know, it’s it’s one of the the most important things in the game. So lag in a swing will be the move that your your arms and your shaft kind of make. So a non like player will be more like a Adam Scott or a Nick Faldo someone like that which is more like a here the top of the swing is here and then the back just kind of comes very little movement on on the shaft. The shaft kind of goes back and forth like this. I have lag on my swing because when I was when I was little, when I was, you know, 10, 12, 14 years old, I was very short. So, I developed that to generate more speed to to be able to hit the ball a little bit farther and and so the guys that were older than me wouldn’t hit it much farther than me. What happened was that, you know, I would go here and from here, if I went just straight back down. Obviously, you could hit it well, but you would hit a lot. I couldn’t generate as much speed. So, the lag was from here kind of dropped a little bit. The hands obviously drops a little bit the shaft. So, the shaft goes from here to here instead of that way. And then that helps me generate a little bit more speed with my hands. and then I can control it with with my body. It’s quite simple. The the key to good balance and and a nice rhythm, it’s just like you would do dancing salsa, you know, you just got to keep it. It’s something that for me I do naturally. So, I don’t have to think too much about it. So, at the end of the day, the most important thing for me, it’s like when I’m here, my hands just come back to this position. At the end of the day, the most important the most important thing in in golf is these two feet, like from here to here. If you can get your club doing the right thing from a foot or a foot and a half before the ball and and a foot past it, that’s all that’s all you need. Obviously, the better your back swing is and the better the the start of your down swing is, it’s a little bit maybe a little bit easier to control that area. But if you can get it consistently from here to here, that’s all you need to hit it great and hit it exactly how you want. For me, uh, a good setup obviously starts with from your feet up. um you know trying to make sure that everything is aligned as well as possible you know feet, knees, hips, shoulders. Uh then for me personally, you know, just making sure that my height on on my setup that I have enough room uh for me to be able to swing. And then, you know, the stability of it uh is it’s important to to make sure that your your body is not going up and down too much uh while you’re swinging. Obviously, there’s going to be some movement there, but you don’t want it to be fluctuating too much because then you have to maneuver with your arms to make sure that you don’t you don’t hit it heavy or or you know, thin things like that. So, I think that’s why it’s so important to if you have a good setup, it’s going to help you with being stable and uh and that’s going to help you with striking the ball better. Obviously, if it was easy to do, everyone would do it. Let’s start with that. But like I said earlier, if you start with good basics, it’s going to help you throughout the whole swing. So if your setup is like this and you’re like that, I mean, obviously then it’s going to be much more difficult for you to to be consistent on those two feet that you need to be good. So obviously if you work on a good setup, I think at the end of the day, you know, the most important thing is obviously to trust it and to for me is to make sure that you get through the ball. I see a lot a lot of people, a lot of amateurs don’t get through the ball. So then when you’re getting the speed with your arms and your hands and you stop your body, then that speed takes over and it’s very difficult to control. If you can keep matching that speed with your body and getting through, then it’s much easier for you to control your club and your speed through impact. That’s one of the things that I try to that I try to tell amateurs the most. Obviously, it’s, you know, once they get to the top of the back swing, make sure they they they drop their hands and they don’t swing with with their shoulders first so they don’t get outside the line. So, for me, the two most important moves for an amateur will be this. Make sure that they do this little move to to to make sure that the but the club it’s it’s coming on the right on the right line. Maybe a little bit on the inside. And then this one getting through getting through the ball strong and and finishing looking at the target uh instead of being up here or you know whichever whichever other other way you want to go. So, I think those for me are probably two of the most important important moves that that an amateur if you can work on it and be consistent with it, it can help a lot. [Music] I think that obviously, you know, getting on the T- box and and hitting a a bomb in a drive straight down the middle, it’s it’s something very fulfilling and, you know, it’s something that we all want to do. But but to be totally honest, when you hit a meat or long iron, even a short iron and and you hit a great shot exactly that you want it, crisp, and it comes out exactly that you want with the spin that you want, and then obviously you hit it, you know, very close to a foot or a couple of feet. That that feeling, it’s amazing because not only it gives you, you know, that that sense of doing exactly what you want, but at the same time, you’re you know, you’re hitting so close. you know, you you know, you’re taking pressure of your putter. You you make it an easy birdie. And obviously, it’s it’s super important. Even though, you know, hitting a nice bomb driver down the middle, it’s it’s always fun. I think mentally it’s a little bit more doubt on my on my mind. When you have more doubts, you’re not you’re not swinging as freely. You’re not swinging as as as smoothly. But the other thing for me when it comes down to uh mechanics would be when when I when I start missing shots is because I get a little tentative and because instead of doing that and getting nice and through through the ball like my first move will be this one and if if I get here then usually I mishit it usually carve it right because I would mish hit it. It will come out with more spin. I won’t start it in the line that I want it. That’s why for me it’s super important to to make sure that my setup is good, that my weight is a little bit on the left on the left leg and then I keep it there and I get through. If I can do that, even even if I miss the shot, it’s it’s a lot more consistent, a lot more solid than uh than if I get here and then I try to save it somehow, you know, with my hand. You know, when you’re getting into that single digit handicap players or even below five handicap, I think their their mechanics are already quite good. So for them to be able to to score better is going to be more avoiding silly mistakes and and probably being a little bit better with the wedge games. At that kind of handicap, you already know that they hit the ball quite well. They hit it quite consistent. They know what they’re doing uh mostly. So if from those 120 yards, 125 yards in, if they can get a little bit better with distance control, spin control, knowing the kind of shot they want to hit depending on on the situation and being able to get up and down more often than not, they can save so many shots because not only they can make a lot more birdies when they’re in that situation, but also if they hit a bad drive and they have to chip out, you know, you have a tab, you you you hit in the trees and you have a tap shot. You might have a little window, but it’s very minimal. And if you try to go for it and you don’t get it, you’re probably going to make a double or a triple. So, to have the confidence of, you know, I’m going to chip it out to 80 or 90 yards. And I know that from there, I’m going to give myself at least a 10 12 footer inside of that for par. You know, you can shape a lot of shots. You can save a lot of shots that way. And that that’s kind of works for us, too. Same thing. I mean, I think at the end of the day, uh, routines are important. Um, you don’t want to get too caught up on them, but but they’re important because it gives you a a momentum and and a stability when it comes down to your shots. So, for me, usually what I do is I step behind the ball, kind of do a practice swing, looking at uh the target that I wanna that I want to aim at, and then usually it’s, you know, step into the ball, get my setup uh correctly, and then do my do my waggle, and then and then hit. But, uh yeah, that’s usually what I do. you know, my I will start with obviously picking the club and whatever, but stand behind the ball, do a little practice swing, kind of see the target that I want to aim at and and the shot that I want to hit, and then just step into it and and hit it. I like to try to swing the same way with every single club. Obviously, when it comes down to the driver and stuff like that, you might hit up a little bit more because of the technology and the balls and everything to to make sure that you get the most out of it, but the the basics of the swing is still the same. And and for me, when I play my best is when when I’m driving the ball well. So, when I feel like my driver swing goes well into my iron swing, I think that’s for me that’s that’s ideal. So when I when I have a driver that I’m comfortable with and I know that I can just do the same thing that I’m doing with my irons and hit it well, that for me it’s it’s the ideal situation. Well, I gave you all my best tips to uh hopefully improve your your ball striking. So now it’s your turn to go out there and put it to play.