Sergio Garcia: How To Hit High Iron Shots

Sergio Garcia talks us through the keys that helped him hit THAT 8 iron on 15 during the final round of this year's Masters

Sergio Garcia: How To Hit High Iron Shots

I made a nice birdie on the 14th on Sunday to get within one of the lead. But when Justin Rose hit a good drive on the par-5 15th, I knew he’d go for the green in two – and I knew I’d need to do something special.

I flushed my drive, leaving just 177 yards to the green. I was thinking eagle. Of course, shots had been running off the back of the 15th green all day (ask Justin), so my only chance to leave a makeable putt was to launch an extra-high iron.

And did I ever. My 8-iron approach actually grazed the pin and stopped 12 feet from the hole. You know the rest.

The trick to adding launch angle and height on iron shots is to move the ball slightly up in your stance – you want it about even with your left heel (roughly where you’d position the ball when hitting a hybrid).

With the ball up in your stance, it’s impossible to deloft the club at impact.

When you swing, think ‘sweep’ more than ‘pinch’, which lets you use all of the loft built into the clubface.

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Here’s a bonus tip for yet more height.

Once you make contact, force your chest up and get your sternum pointing above your target as you move into your follow through.

This helps you guide your club through the impact zone on a slightly ascending angle.

Just so you know, you may lose a bit of distance with this technique, so take an extra club to compensate.

Don’t drive the club down, ‘pinching’ the ball through impact and taking a reasonable divot, as you would for a normal iron shot. You should be looking for more of a sweeping contact.

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