How many fairway woods should i carry

For instance, a 2 iron might be replaced easily by a 2 hybrid or by a 5 wood. It really depends on how well and how far you hit each club. I would tell you the hybrid will be easier and more consistent, but again, it depends on which you hit better and are more comfortable with. You really need to experiment and see what fits your game and your yardages so you have an even gap between clubs and are comfortable with what you're hitting.

Toggle navigation. Get free daily golf tips. Golf Instruction. Woods are made with a similar, but smaller head than drivers and have higher lofts. Compared to other clubs in your bag, a fairway wood will have the longest shaft outside of a driver.

This combination of loft and contact also leads to longer shots, making it an attractive alternative for those seeking more accurate tee shots. Hybrids are designed to replace long and even mid irons. Compared to fairway woods, the shafts of hybrids are shorter and the heads are smaller. By contrast, a hybrid will be longer and have a bigger head than any of your irons.

What makes hybrids suitable replacements for long irons is their deeper club heads. Due to their shape, weight is able to be more evenly distributed, strengthening contact for hits off-center. This is the main appeal of hybrids. Besides better contact, hybrids are designed to cut through rough easier than fairway woods and launch higher.

Taking a big divot with a fairway wood is often indicative of a too steep swing. The design of a hybrid helps you get under the ball, and because of this, a divot is not necessarily a bad thing. A fairway wood has the strongest loft in your bag, minus your driver.

Because of this, it will go farther than any non-driver club. A fairway wood can be used either off the tee or from the fairway. One of the most important factors in deciding whether or not to pull a fairway wood is if the conditions are ideal.

Due to head shape and loft, most players will struggle to get woods in the air from the rough. For many golfers, driving with a 3 wood can have a significant positive effect on your scores. Any potential benefit of distance is wiped out if you are unable to make good contact. As you make your way up through your clubs, they progressively roll longer a 7-iron rolls longer than an 8, etc.

When you use a fairway wood, you should expect a significant amount of roll. It is difficult to stop a ball on the green hit by a fairway wood that also lands on the green.

With a wood, you must land the ball short and run it up. Things like fairway bunkers and well protected greens make this more difficult and might force you to hit a different type of shot or club. Due to their low lofts and traditional flight path, a fairway wood is the least effected type of club when going against the wind. In most circumstances, the wind is stronger at higher altitudes due to a lack of obstacles, which on the golf course takes the form of trees.

A hybrid can be hit from anywhere on the course with any type of shape. When taking a full swing, it will naturally be a high, arcing shot. Should you move the ball back in your stance and close the club face, you can just as easily hit a punch shot. Since hybrids are so forgiving and carry longer than any of your irons, it is suitable to hit off the tee in place of a driver. This is especially true on shorter holes or for tee shots where placement trumps distance. Steel provides stability to the entire body and is easy to build smaller club heads compared to drivers.

Lighter than steel, titanium is a great material for the face of the fairway wood. Thinner faces provide more spring-like affect, which produces more distance than a standard steel clubface.

Also, less weight in the clubface allows the manufacturer to place that weight lower and behind the face, which increases stability and forgiveness on off-center hits. While composite materials cannot be used on the clubface or sole of the fairway wood, they produce the lightest crown on modern fairway woods.

As is the case with Titanium fairway woods, the lighter a golf club can be in the crown, the more weight that can be placed towards the sole, which lowers the center-of-gravity. The key elements of having a low center-of-gravity is increasing initial launch with minimal spin. The easiest way for golf club manufacturers to achieve a low center-of-gravity is by moving as much weight as possible from the crown and clubface to the rear section of the sole.

For more information on COG or center-of-gravity, this article from ThoughtCo provides a plethora of useful points. Having the proper fairway wood length is essential to producing the best possible balance of trajectory, distance, and feel. Those who carry a 5-wood and a 7-wood should be around 41 and 40 inches, respectively. Getting properly fitted is essential to knowing how long your fairway wood shafts should be. For the majority of the 20 th century, golfers used steel shafts in all of their golf clubs, including fairway woods.

Over the last 20 years, however, most fairway woods are sold with graphite shafts. The most important reason why fairway woods utilize graphite vs steel shafts is that lighter shafts are easier to swing faster. Since the average steel shaft weighs grams or more, and graphite shafts range between grams, you will gain more distance with a graphite shafts without compromising feel or consistency.

Your swing speed will determine which shaft flex works best for you, which is another reason why a proper fitting is beneficial. Over the last few years, adjustable fairway woods have become more commonplace, and is now the norm. Now any golfer can use a simple tool to adjust the loft, lie, and even face angle of the best fairway woods. The reasons behind adjustable fairway woods is similar to why you would carry fairway woods versus long irons or even hybrids.

As weather conditions or course conditions change, you may want a 3-wood or 5-wood with less or more loft to make it easier to play. Instead of carrying 10 different clubs for every scenario you may encounter, you can setup one club 10 different ways before you play to optimize its playability on that particular day. Since the majority of high handicappers struggle with hitting the ball high and straight, there are a few characteristics they should look for when purchasing the best fairway woods for their game.

Having the best fairway woods will go a long way in making your long approach shots and tee shots easier and more fun, and I certainly hope this guide will help you find the right mix of fairway woods to help you play your best golf. By using this guide, you will be able to get the best golf fairway woods for your game, and have more fun!