Choosing the correct fairway wood

Fairway woods

Fairway woods can be a very valuable asset to have in your bag, but the choice of the correct fairway wood is critical.

Historically many golfers have played with a combination of driver, 3-wood and 5-wood in their golf bag, purely because this was the traditional thing to do.

I often hear golfers say that they love their 5-wood but struggle with their 3-wood. They then go on to say that they believe thy must persevere with the 3-wood, even though they’re not very consistent with it.

When I see a golfer pull a certain club out their golf bag and immediately see them have doubts whether they can produce a good shot, I ask myself if they should even be carrying that club around with them.

Why persevere with a club you do not like or hit inconsistently?

If it was me I would ask myself a couple of questions. Firstly, “Why am I not hitting this club well”?

It may be a case of getting a lesson to find out why you are struggling with that specific club.

Secondly, I would ask “Is there another club that would do a similar job and might be more suitable for me”?

This is virtually impossible to answer without seeing the individual swing but based on the shot pattern that the golfer is producing I would be able to recommend a suitable club.

Below are a couple of situations and solutions that I have encountered over the past few years.