Placing bets on which former NFL QB will have a better showing on the golf course.
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Back in May 2021, Sergio Garcia returned to TaylorMade’s TOUR staff with a multi-year equipment deal to use the company’s clubs, ball and bag. Garcia left TaylorMade in 2017 after being with the company for nearly his entire professional career, but he came back to the company after an intermission of nearly three years. This week, ahead of the World Golf Championships-Dell Technologies Match Play, TaylorMade provided an in-depth look into the bag of the 11-time PGA TOUR winner, whose victories include the 2008 PLAYERS and 2017 Masters. Garcia also has 16 wins on the DP World Tour. Check out below what the 42-year-old Spaniard has in the bag this year, and why. GRIPS Arguably the most interesting tidbit about Garcia’s gear is the grip he uses on all of his clubs, except the putter. Garcia uses SuperStroke S-Tech grips in a blue-and-yellow colorway, matching the colors of his beloved European Ryder Cup team. It’s not just the color that makes them unique, though. Garcia has weights added to the butt-end of his grips to effectively counterweight the clubs and make the heads feel lighter. This provides multiple benefits. “Since 2004, I have extra weight – counterbalance, it’s called – on the top of my grips,” Garcia said. “It helps me do two things. It helps me have a heavier club, but … it’s not too head heavy. When I have a club that’s too head heavy, the way I swing, my shots get too spinny. So this way I can bring my spin down, and at the same time, it also helps me throw the club a little more on the downswing so it doesn’t get stuck behind me. Even though it’s still a heavy club, it comes out as a lighter (swing weight) overall, because the balance is closer to the middle of the shaft.” THE DRIVER After using a TaylorMade SIM driver throughout most of 2020 and 2021, Garcia upgraded to the new TaylorMade Stealth Plus driver (with a Fujikura Ventus Black 7X shaft) this year. “I love everything about it,” Garcia said. “I love the look of it, the performance, the sound. It’s just a great driver. To me, it’s like an updated version of the SIM driver, which is a driver that I loved. Probably, I thought, it was the best driver that TaylorMade has made until they came out with the Stealth. So I’m super happy about it, and I’ve been driving the ball well.” Garcia ranks fourth in Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee this season, gaining nearly eight-tenths of a stroke per round with his driving. Although his driver says “10.5 degrees” on the head, he actually adjusts the hosel for a lower loft (around 8.5 degrees). The adjustment helps the club face point more to the right at address so it doesn’t look shut to the target for Garcia. FAIRWAY WOODS As with the driver, Garcia also transitioned from TaylorMade’s older SIM models into the new Stealth Plus fairway woods this year. He uses a 3-wood and a 5-wood, and like the driver, he turns down the lofts using hosel adjustments in order to keep the faces from looking too closed. “I like having a little more loft and then turning them lower because that way it squares (the face) a little bit more and it doesn’t aim to the left,” Garcia said. He equips his 3-wood with a Fujikura Ventus Black 7X shaft to match his driver, and his 5-wood has a slightly heavier Fujikura Ventus Black 8X shaft in it. “There’s guys who like to have different driver shafts than their fairway woods,” Garcia said. “I like to have the same feel throughout. … I feel like that’s what works best for me. There’s no right or wrong, it’s just a matter of what you want to see and what you want to feel, and what works best for you.” IRONS AND WEDGES Garcia, who’s been one of the premier ball-strikers in golf for the past two decades, opts to use TaylorMade’s blade-style P-730 irons (3-pitching wedge). The P730 irons first hit retail in November 2017, and they’re forged from 1025 soft carbon steel with faces and grooves that are precision-milled. They’re designed with thin toplines, thin soles and a compact shape that elite ball strikers like Garcia prefer. He also uses just two additional wedges, TaylorMade Milled Grind 3 52- and 58-degree clubs. While many of his professional contemporaries use four wedges in total, Garcia uses just three. Having three wedges allows him to have two fairway woods, as well. “I’ve always had it like this,” he said. “This way the gaps between my wedges are good enough. Also, I have the 58, and if I feel I need more loft, I just open it up. If I go 60, and then 56, and 52, it just feels like there’s too much stuff. I always like to have my 5-wood in, so this wedge setup works.” Each of his irons and wedges are equipped with Nippon N.S. Pro Modus3 Tour 130X shafts. As with his driver and fairway woods, Garcia prefers to have the shafts of his irons and wedges match so the feel is similar throughout the set. PUTTER Although Garcia started this year using a new TaylorMade Spider GT with a red crown, he switched into an older TaylorMade Spider X putter with a silver-and-white crown at THE PLAYERS. Ahead of Wednesday’s first-round match, however, Garcia was spotted testing out a Ping PLD Anser-style putter with an all-black finish. It seems that Garcia is still unsettled with his putter decision, so it’s currently a work in progress. BALL For the only piece of equipment that Garcia uses on every shot, he opts for the 2021 TaylorMade TP5X golf ball. According to Garcia, he finds that the five-layered urethane golf ball offers both greenside control, and control in windy conditions. “I feel like it matches perfectly with my game,” he said. “I hit my windows perfectly with the spin and everything. I’m able to do a lot around the greens, but at the same time, even when it’s windy, I can bring it down and it doesn’t over spin or anything like that, so it works out perfectly.”
Peter Uihlein topped the leaderboard at 8-under 63 on Thursday in the Shriners Hospitals For Children Open, with Jordan Spieth 3 strokes back in his season debut.
Miguel Angel Jimenez made history on Thursday when he teed off at the English Open to make his 707th start on the European Tour, surpassing Sam Torrance’s record. The Spaniard, who has 21 wins on the tour, became the oldest winner in European Tour history in 2014 aged 50 years and 133 days after his victory at the Spanish Open. One of seven brothers, Jimenez, 571st in the world rankings, took up golf as a 15-year-old while picking up balls at the range and caddying.
