Fred Garcia is unabashedly old school. You won’t find him on social media. He’s not a self-promoter, and he probably doesn’t know what an influencer does. If you’re looking for launch monitor analysis, Fred’s not your guy.
But he does have a keen eye for the golf swing, and an unwavering, cross-generational respect for fundamentals. His methods aren’t for everyone, but they’ve certainly worked for Jackson Koivun, the world’s top-ranked amateur and Garcia pupil since he was 12 years old.
Garcia is essentially a self-taught player and instructor. “My dad taught me how to play golf,” says Garcia. “He was my hero.”
Garcia’s first love was baseball, but the golf bug bit him during high school. “When I was a freshman, I played on the JV team and averaged 46 for nine holes,” he says. “By the time I was a senior, I was down to averaging 35.”
After two years at the Community College of the Sequoias in Visalia, Garcia accepted a golf scholarship from Fresno State, where he earned a varsity letter in 1981. After graduating from FSU, he spent 12 years competing on mini-tours, mostly the Golden State Tour (now called the Asher Tour). “I kind of bounced around a little bit,” he says. “I love to play competitively.” A handful of attempts to qualify for the PGA Tour were unsuccessful.
His golf journey changed direction in 1995, when he was recruited to fill a part-time assistant pro vacancy at his home track, Valley Oaks Golf Course in Visalia. He accepted the offer on the condition he could work around his tournament schedule.
“I started giving lessons, and I kind of liked the idea of getting a paycheck every two weeks,” he says. Over the next five years Garcia gradually left the mini tours in favor of the gratification – and steady income – of golf instruction.
He learned what to teach by studying the top players of the mid-1990s, incorporating their common attributes into his own minimalist approach.
In 1999, Garcia got a phone call from Robert Kambourian, an old acquaintance who had just become head professional at a new upscale facility, at the southern tip of Silicon Valley, called Cinnabar Hills Golf Club. Kambourian needed a teaching assistant.
Garcia wasn’t interested. he told Kanbourn that moving to a big city wasn't appealing. “I loved what I was doing, but he was persistent,” says Garcia. “He kept calling me and finally just says ‘come on up here, let’s play a round of golf, have lunch, and then if you don’t want to do it, I won’t bother you anymore.’ I’ve been there now going on 26 years. And that’s where I met Jackson.”
At age 7, Koivun already was a fixture on the practice range at Cinnabar Hills. Garcia didn’t begin working with Jackson until he was 12, when his coach at the time, Garcia’s friend and colleague Hollis Kelley, moved out of town. Jackson’s mom, Meghan Koivun, accompanied her son to the golf course every day and became friendly with Garcia. He was the obvious choice to succeed Kelley.
Garcia is thankful for Jackson’s parents’ unwavering support. “So many parents these days are ‘helicopter parents,’ but Meghan and George are the exact opposite. When I was working with Jackson when he was a lot younger, they never interfered. They just stayed in the background and let me do my thing. They’ve given him incredible support and have always been super nice to me. I think the world of them.”
Garcia doesn’t advertise his services, instead relying exclusively on referrals. “They’re friends of friends, essentially,” he says. “I can honestly say that all the students I have now are just awesome. They all have a passion for golf, and they want to get better. And I pride myself in knowing that I can make them better golfers.”
His teaching philosophy is centered around fundamentals and routine. “I try to just keep it very simple,” says Garcia. “It’s rare that I try to change anybody’s swing. I’m a big believer in just getting the basic fundamentals correct, because typically most amateurs have a number of things wrong in their setup – their grip, their stance, their alignment, their ball position. It’s hard to be consistent if one of those things is off, much less two or three.
“If I can get them in the correct setup position, that goes such a long way to them making good, solid, consistent contact. Once they start doing that, their confidence grows and they just kind of buy into it. Once they get that all sorted out, they start seeing the results right away.
“I teach beginners and all the way up to Jackson, and every skill level in between. With all of them, I try to keep things simple. I’m also a big believer in goals, so I talk to them about what they’re hoping to accomplish. That way we can set in place a plan to help them achieve it.”
Equally important, Garcia preaches, is development of a consistent pre-shot routine. “I’m a very big believer in that,” he says. “If you watch the tour players – men or women, it doesn’t matter – they all have a routine. They do it the exact same way every single time.
“I’ll ask new students to show me their routine and have them hit five or six balls. Every ball is different in how they set up and how they do their thing. I tell them, well, that’s not a routine. If you watch tour players, they do it the exact same thing every single time, the way they walk into it, the number of looks they take.”
When Garcia began working with Koivun, “he really didn’t have a consistent routine. I’ll never forget the first lesson we had. He hit a medium bucket of balls in about five minutes, just rifling through them. When he got done, I said ‘you’ve got to learn how to practice. You’ve got to have a routine.’”
Garcia believes the importance of a pre-shot routine – even when chipping or putting – can’t be overstated, explaining that the internal checklist of grip, aim, ball position and posture quiets the mind. “There’s a kind of flow or a timing to it, so you don’t see [elite golfers] stand over the ball and then freeze like so many amateur golfers do,” he says. “I think it’s very important that golfers have a routine, a process where they get the correct grip, they have the correct posture, their ball position is correct. Because all these things matter and go such a long way toward making solid contact. If you get all those things in the proper position, the swing actually is pretty simple.”
Having a consistent routine is especially helpful to recreational golfers who don’t have time to practice. “Golfers who play once a week, once every couple of weeks, struggle being consistent,” says Garcia. “They don’t have a process they can follow to make sure everything’s in the right place. They hit a shot and it goes wayward, so they change something on the next shot and continue that pattern through the entire round.”
Of course, poor shots have a variety of causes. But sticking to a routine, Garcia says, will mitigate those bad swings because a routine sets the golfer up for success. “I’m just big on you’ve got to look like a pro when you set up,” he says. “That goes such a long way to becoming a good golfer.”
A couple of years after going to work at Cinnabar, Garcia met Bill Condaxis, another instructor who was teaching there. Condaxis is a protégé of Fred Shoemaker, a longtime NorCal teacher and author of Extraordinary Golf: The Art of the Possible, which takes a holistic approach to the game. “I learned a lot from [Condaxis],” says Garcia. “How you use your brain, your mind, when you’re out playing.”
The Extraordinary Golf concepts also aligned with Garcia’s minimalist approach to teaching. “I just use my eyes and see what the ball’s doing and then we can go from there,” he says.
If Koivun senses his full swing or putting stroke is off kilter, he can rely on Garcia to detect the problem and adjust accordingly. But Garcia’s work with his star pupil is more tactical. “We spend a lot of time on the golf course, talking about course strategy,” he says. “I’ll ask him, ‘OK, what’s your plan here?’ and he’ll describe in detail what his target is, how he’ll shape the shot, and what his objective is.
“So it’s just kind of getting into his head that this is what he has to do on every shot, every putt. He has to have a plan and be committed to that plan.
“That’s one thing I preach to him is you can’t go after every pin. We know you can go to that back right pin from 230 yards, but how about you go to the center of the green, or maybe aim a little bit more to the safe side of the green. If you’re going to miss, figure out where you want to miss.”
Persuading Koivun to play certain holes conservatively isn’t always easy because “there’s no shot he doesn’t think he can hit, regardless of the situation.” On the other hand, Garcia’s work with high handicap recreational golfers typically presents a more difficult problem – negativity.
“Golf is so mental. It’s important to give players something positive to think about. It’s hard to be a good golfer if you always have negative thoughts, I can’t do this, or I can’t do that.
“OK, well guess what,” says Garcia. “As long as you keep saying you hit the driver bad, you’re gonna keep hitting the driver bad. Enough of the I can’t, I can’t, I can’t. You’ve got to believe that you can hit a driver.”
That’s where Garcia’s obsession with fundamentals comes into play. “As the stuff that we can control – grip, aim, stance, posture – improves, so will the swing. It just takes patience, and gradually believing in yourself will overcome the negativity.”
Garcia has experienced a modest uptick in requests for lessons, thanks to his newfound notoriety as Koivun’s coach. “I’m booked three weeks out, and I tell people that if they’re willing to wait, I’ll be happy to work with them.”
He acknowledges that his teaching methods aren’t for everyone. “I’ve probably lost students over the years because I didn’t have a TrackMan or whatever. But, honestly, I’m old school. People say you should be on social media, you should advertise, blah, blah, blah. I don’t want to. I’m perfectly happy and I’ve enjoyed doing what I do.”
With an eye toward retirement, Garcia, 65, and his partner Kim Young purchased a home last December at the new San Juan Oaks 55-and-over, resort-style Trilogy golf community near Hollister, 39 miles south of Cinnabar Hills. Garcia also joined the staff at San Juan Oaks as a part-time instructor. He works two days a week there and commutes the rest of the week to Cinnabar Hills, where he arrives at 5 a.m., minds the shop until noon, then gives lessons in the afternoon.
“I’m not ready to retire yet,” says Garcia. “I love what I do. I love giving lessons. I love working in the pro shop.”
Koivun’s meteoric ascent might change Garcia’s routine, if only for a few weeks each year. Koivun already has earned full PGA Tour eligibility via the organization’s University Accelerated program, which rewards performance points to top college players. He opted to remain an amateur and return to Auburn University for his junior year.
Should he elect to turn pro after the 2026 NCAA Championships, Koivun figures to be an immediate force. At the beginning of October, he was No. 167 in the Official World Golf Rankings, finishing 11th or better in his last four starts on the PGA Tour or DP World Tour – a 1,952-place improvement since the end of 2024, the year he finished 52nd in his PGA Tour debut at The Memorial.
Elite players typically have an entourage – caddie, swing coach, mental coach, manager, chef, manager’s assistant, etc. Garcia accompanied Koivun to the 2025 U.S. Open at Oakmont Country Club in Pittsburgh, but he’s not inclined to be on the road with him every week next summer. Garcia says Koivun isn’t needy in that regard, and phone conversations, video exchanges or FaceTime – Garcia isn’t a total Luddite – should suffice. Nevertheless, he acknowledged that any majors Koivun qualifies for likely will be can’t-miss exceptions.
“Augusta National, yes, definitely we’ve already talked about that,” says Garcia. “I went to Oakmont and that was just an unbelievable experience. But do I envision myself being at every tournament? Honestly, no.”
After all, Garcia has lessons to give. The old fashion way.