Anyone use hybrids INSTEAD of fairway woods?

I have never had much luck hitting fairways woods off the deck.

Recently, I put a Nickent 3DX DC Ironwood 23* into play in place of my 3 iron and I absolutely love it! No problems off the tee or from the fairway or even the rough!

So I got to thinking.....why not play a 17* Hybrid in place of my 4 wood? Or even play a 15.5* hybrid, and switch my 23* to the 20*? (Due to swing and fitness changes I now hit my 4 iron about the same distance as the 23* hybrid, so thats being changed to the 20* or 21.5* anyway).

I know I might lose some yardage due to the fact that they are a bit shorter, but if I can hit it consistent and online, isn't that a fair trade-off?

Anyone else use hybrids in place of fairway woods?

I went through this last year and the first part of this year. I have come to this conclusion. I do not believe that hybrids are meant to replace the lower lofted fairway woods. Higher lofted fairway woods and long irons are the targeted replacement. I bought a cheap Wilson Hb5 17* hybrid to play around with. My thought was that this would replace a 3 wood. I could not have been more wrong. I was not getting anywhere near the distance I would get out of a 3 wood. I also noticed a problem hitting out of the rough. Since the club head is wider heel to toe than it is deep the grass has a tendency to open or close the face of the club, depending on the lie. I have realize the errors of my way and I am currently looking for a 3 wood. I have little doubt that hybrids have a place in anyones bag but only to replace long irons or high lofted fairway woods. I do not feel that they are a viable 3 or 5 wood replacement

PS I also have G2 HL in my bag.

I went through this last year and the first part of this year. I have come to this conclusion. I do not believe that hybrids are meant to replace the lower lofted fairway woods. Higher lofted fairway woods and long irons are the targeted replacement. I bought a cheap Wilson Hb5 17* hybrid to play around with. My thought was that this would replace a 3 wood. I could not have been more wrong. I was not getting anywhere near the distance I would get out of a 3 wood.

Part of the reason you may not have hit this club as far as a 3 wood is that it doesn't have the loft of a 3 wood. Most standard 3 woods are 15*. Plus the shaft of your 17* hybrid is probably shorter than the shaft of a 3 or 4 wood. That would account for the lack of distance you were getting out of the hybid. Probably a 14* would be closer to a 3 wood.

i have two of the callaway FT hybrids... 1 is 14* and the other is 17* and they work great... well atleast better than how i was hitting my fwy woods :) they are just easier to hit for me than a fwy wood and i don't know/care why... on the courses that i play its a rare occasion for me to hit them... maybe once every four rounds or so, but im more consistent with them than a fwy wood

So long FW woods and I won't look back, I've just never been accurate with the darn things despite being generally solid with my drivers. I love my 21 and 17 degree Fli-Hi II's and I'll be adding a 14 degree Halo (3 wood replacement) to round out my bag soon unless I demo and love the new Hogan CFT-Ti 14 degree.

i experimented using a 14* tm rescue dual tp instead of a 15* fairway wood. it was very easy to hit, off different lies, but it did come up a tad shorter than a 3 wood. off the tee, i still prefer the wood, and i've become more consistent with the wood and carry the wood.

i see nothing wrong with carrying a hybrid instead of a wood. in reality, the hybrids are pretty close size wise to persimion woods. if your looking for easy to hit off a fairway to go after par 5's in 2 or for long par 4's, and struggle with woods then this is the way to go. if this is something you would use a lot off the tee, then a wood is the way to go.

I recently gave up fairways for hybrids. My HALOs are great in comparison to all of the fairways I've used. And I've used a lot of fairways...good ones. But let me tell you, I just can't hit them anymore for whatever reason. I really didn't lose ANY yardage. I just got more aggressive because I knew I could make contact. Especially my 3 wood. I went up one degree on my 1i HALO, and I can lay into it about 250 yards with my shaft combo. I love it! I'll never go back to fairways.

I put a Nike CPR Wood-Iron 18* in my bag instead of a 5 wood. The main thing that makes me like this more than a 5 wood is the fact that the shaft is shorter which lets me control the hybrid better.

See "What's In My Bag" :crazy:

I had used baffler 1/r 16 degree to replace 3 wood for a while (say 5-10 rounds). I got a little bit shorter distance, but lots forgiveness.

However I just found out that callaway x tour strong 3 fwy is very easy to hit. The head has a low profile and is very small. Its club depth is less than that of a cobra baffler in fact. In generall x tour fwy is similar to cobra baffler during the setup except the later looks a little bit of larger. IMHO. the difference during the setup between different brands of hybrid clubs is more than that between a cobra baffler and a cally x tour fwy.

At this point I really don't know what's the difference between a fwy and a hybrid except the club length if they have the same degree. Maybe someone can have an experiment -- the same shaft, the same length, and one is with a hybrid head and the other is with the same degree fwy head, to see which one is easiler to hit and which one hit farther. Then comparing the experiment result with the experiement results baesd on differenent brand hybrid only. :)

Just my 1 cent

Part of the reason you may not have hit this club as far as a 3 wood is that it doesn't have the loft of a 3 wood. Most standard 3 woods are 15*. Plus the shaft of your 17* hybrid is probably shorter than the shaft of a 3 or 4 wood. That would account for the lack of distance you were getting out of the hybid. Probably a 14* would be closer to a 3 wood.

I understand what you are saying and factored in all of the differences, including the quality of the club that I purchased. I was hitting this hybrid about 10 yards longer than my 3 iron.

Hybrids are a great step forward in the technology evolution in golf. I have no doubt that hybrids have made their mark on the game and will continue to be a part of golf for a very long time.