Hybrids only, no fairways?

[geochitown]

maybe try 5 wood at 41" and 3 hybrid at 40" (stock lengths on hybrids are crazy long these days)

[jgreer1421]

Made the switch also, but the other way....granted, a shaft swap could've helped tremendously...but I'm pretty steep, so hybrids were hit or miss and inconsistent with my callaway apex hybrid.  Swapped my 4 hybrid for a u65 utility iron, same distance and more forgiving to me....looks way better at address for my eye....arguably one of my best purchases to date!   Then I added a 5 wood primarily for off the tees, but shortened and went heavier with the shaft.  Better for my eye, little higher launching, without losing much consistency.  

 

 

[Drivingrangehero]

Tigerinthewoods

I was in the same boat, and we are similar in distances, although I may be slightly shorter carry (5 yards) on irons and slightly longer on driver (5 yards) but that’s due to loft or AOA I suppose, my SS is around 112-113 ish. I have tried many hybrids over the years and I am yet to find one better than the 2016 Callaway Apex hybrid. I love it so much that I sent an almost new one out to Callaway to have the lie flattened 2° So I could add 1/2 inch length and swap the shaft with something stiffer and lower launch ( from a stock Kuro Kage S flex to a Aldila 2KXV TX) and it fits the gap very well. Although, my problem with a 3 wood wasn’t a distance issue, but a dispersion issue.  

I’m longer with the 18° hybrid than I was with a 5 wood due to flight, but not quite 3 wood distance either...... more like a 4 wood distance, but with better dispersion and flight. 

I feel like if I could throw a DG SL105 steel shaft in a 5 wood, then I’d carry a 5 wood, otherwise the length of it just doesn’t give me the dispersion I am looking for, which seems odd, since I added 1/2 inch to my hybrid so it plays 41” ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 
 

I felt that I am still long enough that I dont need to quibble over a few yards, especially if those yards are in the right fairway.  ?
 

 

 

 

Edited August 21, 2020 by Drivingrangehero
Typo

[xkilgorextroutx]

3 hours ago, TigerInTheWoods said:

Slower swing speed - fairway wood is almost always the better option. Faster you get the less low/back CG you want (generally). Fairway (slow need launch) --> Hybrid (med flight)--> Driving Iron (low flight for those who balloon and are super quick).

 

 

 

That's me. Driver maxes out around 95 on a good day. I go from 4w then 7w straight to 5i.

[jjfcpa]

As a senior golfer, I certainly don't have the SS that some of you have.  I've already dropped the 3w from the bag because it didn't go any further (95+%) of the time than my 5w.  This morning I went to the driving range with the intent of comparing my 3h (Callaway Mavrik) to my 5w (also a Callaway Mavrik).  On occasion, the 5w maybe ran out a little further, but there were times when I think my 3h was at least as far and maybe a few yards further than my 5w.  One thing that sort of made me think this would be a good move is my misses with the 3h were much less punishing than my miss with the 5w.  I think I also transition better from an iron to a hybrid so I have fewer misses with a hybrid than a fw.

[jjfcpa]

Played 18 holes today and put in a 3h and used it in place of my 5w.  Worked out great.  I still carried the 5w just in case, but I think I can safely pull the 5w and just go with a 3h and 4h.

[third-times-a-charm]

6 hours ago, jjfcpa said:

Played 18 holes today and put in a 3h and used it in place of my 5w.  Worked out great.  I still carried the 5w just in case, but I think I can safely pull the 5w and just go with a 3h and 4h.

Depends what the lofts are,  I guess.

 

My 3h is a more traditional 20 and my 5w is 18 so I play both. The number on the club can be misleading.

[BogeyParBogey]

I like the low lofted hybrid option and I don't have as much speed as most of the posters here either.  The shorter club build is a lot easier to hit solid.

 

Dave

[Bodles]

I did a while ago, dropped the 3 wood for a #2 hybrid and then added in a 20 degree in place of 5 wood and or 2 or 3 iron, just better all round, consistency and shot shape with trajectory, so far so good.

[Bubbtubbs]

My 19° hybrid and I don't get along. Sometimes it's dead straight and others it's a hook machine. 

 

I get that it's me and not the club, but I just put 5w back in the bag rather than learn to hit a whole new style of club I rarely use - most of the time it gets pushed out of the bag by 2i anyways. It was a pre-owned OTR purchase but it's from 2013 and has little adjustability for weighting so the problem of me turning it over too easily just isn't going to go away without work I'm not willing to put in. 

 

But if it works for you, more power to you.

[VNutz]

I've wanted to try this lately, but I've never gotten along with lower lofted hybrids, most are too hard for me to launch. I've got about a 110 driver SS, but I hit a lower ball so it doesn't work for me unless I want to hit burners, and that defeats the purpose. Something about the combination of lower loft and shorter shaft length gives me fits. Been going strong with the 5Deep for several years now and don't want to change, but there's always an itch to scratch...

[mootrail]

I carried an 18° 5W as my only fairway for a couple years that carried 200+ and rolled out to ~215.  I switched this year to a 19° 4 hybrid.  Same carry as my 5W but with a ~30 rollout.  That makes it longer and much easier to control with the iron length shaft.  Consistency is one big reason the switch was easy, the other biggie; my 5W is useless into the wind!

 

I like my 5W a lot, but it just balloons into the wind if I'm not careful.  I'm not talking a lot of wind, just an every day 10-15 mph on average.  With the 4H the wind is no worry and if I'm looking for a softer landing I can try a bit of a cut.  Truth is, I liked the 4H so much I got the 5 as well and that's my 200 soft landing club.  Just a bit shorter in carry, but goes high and lands soft like a 5W but is seemingly less affected by the wind.  I picked up a 6 at the same time figuring on keeping one or the other.  Now I carry all three:)

Edited August 24, 2020 by mootrail

[kthomas]

I went the other way on this. 

 

I used to play with an R11s 3-wood, and a rocketballz tour 3 hybrid (neither was fitted to me, hand me downs from my cousin who's a scratch golfer). The R11s was good off the tee, but I struggled with it off the deck. I had a shaky relationship with that 3 hybrid. After a bunch of research, I thought that perhaps I would be better off replacing both of those with a more modern and forgiving 3 and 5 hybrid, so off I went and purchased some Cobra F7 hybrids. Started off that relationship okay, they were certainly more forgiving then the clubs they replaced, but I just wasn't quite as consistent with them as I would like, and when my swing wasn't on they had a tendency to develop a nasty hook. So then I went off looking again...

 

Fast forward to where I'm at today. I took the 3 hybrid out of the bag, just not consistent enough with it to have any confidence in it, I hook it more often then I would like, and I never know when that hook is going to show up (more a problem with my swing then the club, but I digress...). I picked up a Callaway Epic Flash SZ 3 wood, which has been a laser off the tee and awesome off the deck and the first cut of rough. I've been really happy with that purchase. Works great when I have a shaky day with my driver, a 2nd shot on a long par 5, or sometimes really short par 4's. The 5 hybrid has been largely replaced by my 4 iron, I just have more confidence in my 4 iron, though the 5 hybrid stays in the bag for the occasional specialty shot, a hybrid can be handy to have. 

 

Best of luck, I liked the idea of hybrids, but just couldn't employ them as I wanted to. Perhaps you will have better luck. 

[Juice1121]

Whoever said woods are for players with slow swing speeds and faster players should use hybrids should really tell Tiger Woods that... or Dustin Johnson who bagged a 7 wood this past weekend... or Jason day... or Justin Thomas.... or Rickie Fowler... 

[postfold]

I'm on team no fairways, I've never hit them well and it got to the point where I wouldn't use them at all.  After years of hooking every hybrid off the planet I finally found ones that work for me (818H1) and they're now my favorite clubs.

[RacineBoxer]

On 8/20/2020 at 7:36 PM, jjfcpa said:

The big question for me is do I just pull the 5w from the bag and put in a 3h and see how it goes?  I don't see how I have that much to lose, especially when I'm losing confidence with the 5w.

 

Sure.

 

There is no right or wrong answer really.  It's about what YOU hit well and filling yardage gaps.  Nothing wrong with going Driver, 3W, 5W (and even 7W) and there is nothing wrong with going Driver, 2H, 3H, 4H, 5H. Play clubs you can hit well and give you confidence. And if you are a slower swing speed player, there are hybrids and shafts designed to give you more launch and more carry.

 

Golf clubs really are not changing much year to year or even within 3-5 years. A 2015-16 used hybrid off ebay has to be a super cheap experiment if you're worried about throwing away too much money. 

[jasonTeI3]

Funny I just switched to this. Had a problem keeping 3w from going left off the turf so went with hybrids of 17* cranked down to 15.5 and a 22* down to 20.5* so they would sit open. 

[Roejye]

I don't have a fairway wood either, I don't particularly get along with 3 woods, and the course I play 99% of the time doesn't really have a need for them. I have an Adams xtd ti 17.5° hybrid that is my 2nd club and an Adams speedline 4 hybrid into 6-DW of my Cleveland 588 mts. I found the xtd by trying out some 5 woods and the hybrid was giving me the distance I was looking for and I hit it very well. Only issue is a large yardage gap at the top of the bag, but as I said, it's not a problem at my home course.