Fairway woods buying guide

Every club in your bag serves a purpose. The fairway woods are no exception. While you might hit your driver over 250 yards and hit your lowest trajectory iron around 200 yards (most likely 3 iron), you still need to have clubs to cover the 200-250 yard range. Note, I am just using the numbers as an example. Your distances will most likely vary. The important thing to remember is that you need to have clubs to cover the distance between your long iron and driver.

These woods start at the 2 wood and go up past the 9 wood. These clubs are not limited to fairway shots. While a 3 and 5 wood is recommended, the popularity of clubs such as a 7 and 9 wood have decreased in popularity due to hybrid clubs. The 3 wood typically has a loft around 15 degrees and travels around 215-230 yards. On narrow and/or short par 4 holes, you may wish to use your 3 wood as it provides better control than most drivers. The 5 wood is usually set around 19 degrees and travels 200-215 yards. This club comes in handy because it usually has the same loft as a 2 iron and is much easier to hit. Therefore, there is no need to carry a 2-iron for most mid to high-handicap golfers. The 3 wood and 5 wood both have a larger clubhead than irons and are typically easier to hit . Many people use them out of the rough because they have a high Moment of Inertia. This means that the club head has a high resistance to twisting, which makes it easy to square the clubface at impact.

Manufacturers continue to make many improvements to these clubs. They have mastered the ability to move the center of gravity of the clubhead away from the clubface and very low. This helps elevate the flight path, which helps beginner and intermediate golfers. Just as modern drivers are no longer made of wood, fairway woods have followed that trend. These clubheads are made of steel, titanium or a composite material. Manufacturers design all three materials to have good forgiveness by moving weight to the perimeter of the clubhead. This provides forgiveness when the sweet-spot is missed. Composite clubheads are increasing in popularity and contain a carbon material placed at the rear of the clubhead. Titanium is generally the most expensive, while steel is the cheapest. Manufacturers continue to experiment with fairway wood designs and have even added metal inserts to provide better feel. Many good players do not like such inserts because of the reduce response on mishits. Depending on your ability, you might want to look at such clubheads.

Depending on whether or not you prefer more distance or more control, this will determine what shaft material that you should be looking at. Like other club types, you can choose between steel and graphite. There is a greater percentage of people that use steel fairway woods compared to people who use steel drivers. This is because many golfers prefer the control needed to approach greens. If you have at least an average swing speed, I would definitely recommend steel shaft fairway woods. Read the shaft section for more information. This section goes over the different shaft flexes, which is very important.

GRIP's 2007 Hot Steel Fairway Woods - Cutting edge weight port design for high launch and long distance. Only $79.99

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