Situationals: driver vs 3W off the tee

[North Butte]

7 hours ago, manima1 said:

Am I the only one who is just as accurate with Driver as 3W?  I feel like the driver is a more forgiving, much larger club that is easier for a mere 7 handicap like myself to hit.  If I was a scratch handicap elite ballstriker maybe that would be different.  But considering I’m a decent driver of the ball and consider that to be a strength, generally I’m not better off trying to use a fairway wood off the tee.

I hit the driver straighter than a 3w or 5w, myself.

[Unteachable]

almost every time i make what is supposed to be the "smart" play and tee off with 3w or hybrid i screw it up and regret it

[vanzeppelin]

I don't know what courses yall are playing where bombing driver every hole is the wise move. There are usually at least 2-3 holes per round where it 100% makes sense to hit 3 wood off the tee. The "analytics" are generalized, not specific. Of course it's more beneficial to be closer to the hole, but hole design makes hitting driver bring in way more risk of disaster sometimes.

 

I can think of 3 holes I frequently play where, in theory, I could hit driver and potentially have a short pitch on. But it has to be hit perfectly and if it's not disaster comes into play super easily. So I hit fairway wood off the tee, into the much safer part of the fairway, and still have a very manageable approach.

[Gohigh]

7 hours ago, manima1 said:

Am I the only one who is just as accurate with Driver as 3W?  I feel like the driver is a more forgiving, much larger club that is easier for a mere 7 handicap like myself to hit.  If I was a scratch handicap elite ballstriker maybe that would be different.  But considering I’m a decent driver of the ball and consider that to be a strength, generally I’m not better off trying to use a fairway wood off the tee.

I never understood the 3w as being any easier to hit than a driver as well. Ive experimented with Mini Drivers (TM OG1, Ping Rapture, Cally 3Deep) and currently bagging the TSR2+ because if Im going to use the 3w more off the tee, then why not go with something thats designed with that in mind. I love shallow faced fairway woods, and honestly I dont feel that comfortable with it being my driver alternative, since I chose it with hitting it off the deck in mind... which prob needs to happen never. I carry a 5w as that club now. 

[bmbsawy]

7 minutes ago, vanzeppelin said:

I don't know what courses yall are playing where bombing driver every hole is the wise move. There are usually at least 2-3 holes per round where it 100% makes sense to hit 3 wood off the tee. The "analytics" are generalized, not specific. Of course it's more beneficial to be closer to the hole, but hole design makes hitting driver bring in way more risk of disaster sometimes.

 

I can think of 3 holes I frequently play where, in theory, I could hit driver and potentially have a short pitch on. But it has to be hit perfectly and if it's not disaster comes into play super easily. So I hit fairway wood off the tee, into the much safer part of the fairway, and still have a very manageable approach.

Again- it sounds like you are missing the part where we are assuming you know the size of your shot pattern and the landing area will accommodate that full shot pattern without hazards

[dubbelbogey]

Remember - it's not "driver all the time". It's hit is as far as possible without putting trouble into likely play. If that means hitting shorter, use a shorter club like 3w/5w/etc... (or, like some of us, chip the driver). 

 

And also, left/right dispersion often isn't significantly better with 3w vs driver (for many/most of us). So if you're in that camp, might as well push it up farther towards the hole (again, provided you don't put trouble into play with that extra distance.)

 

 

[ARSM1932]

12 hours ago, bluedot said:

People don't like it when I say the things below, but here goes.  Again...

 

1. The pros do a LOT less shot shaping than most of us imagine.  The guys that play a draw play a draw, and the guys that play a fade play a fade; they don't constantly go back and forth.  The fact that they CAN doesn't mean that they DO.

 

2. The pros hit their 3w off the tee only when a driver would go too far.  The idea that a 3W is somehow easier to hit is a ship that sank a long, long time ago.

 

3. If YOU are more accurate with your 3w, you have the wrong driver, just like the guys who say "I hit my 3W farther than I hit my driver!".  In which case, you need a new driver.  Lots of guys mistake shorter on the same vector as straighter, which simply isn't the case, and there is now a MOUNTAIN of data that longer is better, unless longer goes too far.

I disagree with points 2 and 3, yes point 2 is sometimes true but often the tour players will hit a fairway wood or long iron to give them a much better chance of hitting the fairway on a tighter driving hole while the least said about point 3 the better because longer shafted clubs are always harder to control in terms of accuracy compared to shorter clubs therefore all tour players will hit a 9 iron straighter than a 6 iron which they will hit straighter than a 3 iron, although it is true that if a player hits 3 wood further than than driver then clearly they are not optimising their driver setup.

 

Amateurs who hit driver on every par 4 hole regardless of length must either only play on 7500 yard golf courses or else they have no speed and hit their driver the same distance (or shorter) than most LPGA Tour players, and I know plenty such golfers.

Edited May 12, 2023 by ARSM1932
Inaccuracy

[scooterhd2]

23 hours ago, Jayjay_theweim_guy said:

I had that issue too, when I tried cranking down the loft and flattening the lie.  I'm just not used to seeing the driver's toe up so high, compared to my 3W and 5W.  It's a mental thing, plus I gather Ping woods are a bit more upright than Callaway's, apples to apples.  Yay adjustable hosels!  Boo to no longer being able to turn the driver over.  Straight with a tailing fade was as good as it got.  The back weight on the G425 Max will move ball flight, but it's a grossly overpowered adjustment.

 

So, I finally found the club wrench, dialed it back to 10.5 and regular lie, and things improved.  Straight-ish, higher launch (it was a bit low before) and tails a tad either left or right.  But manageable.  Gross setup changes producing hook or slice as desired.

 

Point is, could you alter your driver to enable you to turn it over?  Or is that not possible?

 

Oh, I'm sure I could. But I dont ever want to see driver going left. I'd take 40 yards right over 20 yards left. 

[RoyalMustang]

16 hours ago, vanzeppelin said:

I don't know what courses yall are playing where bombing driver every hole is the wise move. There are usually at least 2-3 holes per round where it 100% makes sense to hit 3 wood off the tee. The "analytics" are generalized, not specific. Of course it's more beneficial to be closer to the hole, but hole design makes hitting driver bring in way more risk of disaster sometimes.

 

I can think of 3 holes I frequently play where, in theory, I could hit driver and potentially have a short pitch on. But it has to be hit perfectly and if it's not disaster comes into play super easily. So I hit fairway wood off the tee, into the much safer part of the fairway, and still have a very manageable approach.

 

yeah; 26-yard wide fairway lined with trees on a 375 yard hole: I am in great birdie shape if I smoke a driver straight and leave myself a 60-yard chip, but it's tough. I can get that 3H down the fairway to 235 pretty easily though and have a soft 9-iron and often a decent birdie attempt. If I can't hit the driver in a 26-yard window, it's a tough punchout and tough par, if I even have a shot that isn't behind a tree. I bet if I ran the numbers on that hole with a 3H off the tee, it is probably roughly an average par for me (4) but with driver, I see a lot more bogeys than I do birdies, so 4.5 or so.  Offline counts for something as well. I am swinging well, a 9 or PW into the green gives me no-stress pars all day long, but certainly I would prefer to be 50 yards out.  

My best rounds are where I am very accurate with the driver, getting lots of birdie attempts, and making a few putts. Next best rounds are where I am keeping the ball in the fairway, hitting my irons well, and getting lots of no-stress pars. Worst rounds are where I am pulling my driver out on every hole, punching out of trouble, and constantly looking to save pars. I still haven't broken par yet but have been one shot over a couple of times on challenging courses. I do think there is a higher ceiling with playing driver more often, but you have to control that floor as well.

 

Eagle and double bogey counts the same as 2 pars. 

[SurfDuffer]

If a hole doesn't require a driver and I know I can hit less than driver and leave myself a 7-iron or less into the green I hit less than driver.   I hit 2-iron off the tee a couple of times per round.  Off a tee I hit it 245 on a good strike and a bad swing will be a 220 fade to the right.  My good swing and worst result of a bad swing are very predictable with the 2-iron........more so than even a 3-wood. 

[Luke'sdad]

Control & accuracy increases. Bottom line

[Tiptx1122]

It's called course management, something we all should learn to do more often especially me.

[North Butte]

1 hour ago, Luke'sdad said:

Control & accuracy increases. Bottom line

If that were the bottom line, surely everyone would tee off with their putter.

[Pepperturbo]

Played 6300yd White (69/124) tees yesterday, used driver off 2 Par 5s and 2 Par 4s.  Rest of the time 2i or 4i off respective tees.  Some holes I had a mid-long iron in, but got the job done with a 75. 

 

Like so many mid-caps, my 50yr old buddy hit driver off nearly all holes, it's his favorite club, only his mid-shorter clubs are not nearly as dependable. 

[philly2kuk]

At my home club there are several holes where I hit my 4 wood instead of my driver. This is just down to the fact these holes are tight and relatively short, plus I hit my 4 wood about 220. On two of the holes it leaves a wedge in, on the third it puts me short of the ditch my driver goes in and on the fourth it leaves me short of a huge tree in the middle of the fairway.
 

None of these holes would play easier if I hit driver as they’re all tight holes, with two holes resulting in a drop shot or hack out. So it tends to be strategy, but when I first started as a junior, I only had a three wood and never suffered.

[sworkman]

I'll start by saying that I'm a beginner, and nowhere near a "golfer."

 

But I am a statistician who deals with a lot more serious societal problems than how close I am to the green. Most of the thread centers on an ecological fallacy - statistics, no matter the sample, never apply to individuals. And, the more context-driven and situational an individual case or observation, the less the center mass (means, medians, or averages) of a statistical distribution applies. I can't bend it around a dog-leg par 5, but I can say that golf might be the most situational sport a person could concoct. This is the reason so many statistically (usually offensive) dominant baseball teams get eliminated in the playoffs, often early - regular season statistics do not apply to situational baseball when strategies are altered.

 

How much any of these strategies work depends entirely on the shape of the distribution and where each individual falls in that distribution. If your distribution looks really normal, taking cues from some stats will incrementally nudge you in a positive direction. If you are the type to play well, then blow up on a hole because you systematically (meaning in a way not accounted for by a random, normal distribution) fail in execution or strategically playing a hole, it doesn't matter what the average says, its meaningless in a context where the focus should be on the tails of the distribution (and "thinning" them, ironically), not the center.

 

Saying that something works most of the time for most people only has meaning in a distribution with really tight variation around the mean - I very much doubt swings for players beyond the pros look like this distributionally (though I could be convinced with data). Then, you have to begin to account for the total absence of independent observations that statistical analysis (unless you are a Bayesian) relies on. How you played with a specific club on the last hole absolutely affects how you play with that club on the next, including whether you play that club at all.

 

I'm not saying you can't learn something from statistics, but not without knowing what the distribution of the data looks like for a person with particular, systematic patterns. And, a lot more discussion should center around the trade-off in strategizing around the center of the statistical distribution versus the tails.

Edited May 15, 2023 by sworkman

[bmbsawy]

1 hour ago, sworkman said:

I'll start by saying that I'm a beginner, and nowhere near a "golfer."

 

But I am a statistician who deals with a lot more serious societal problems than how close I am to the green. Most of the thread centers on an ecological fallacy - statistics, no matter the sample, never apply to individuals. And, the more context-driven and situational an individual case or observation, the less the center mass (means, medians, or averages) of a statistical distribution applies. I can't bend it around a dog-leg par 5, but I can say that golf might be the most situational sport a person could concoct. This is the reason so many statistically (usually offensive) dominant baseball teams get eliminated in the playoffs, often early - regular season statistics do not apply to situational baseball when strategies are altered.

 

How much any of these strategies work depends entirely on the shape of the distribution and where each individual falls in that distribution. If your distribution looks really normal, taking cues from some stats will incrementally nudge you in a positive direction. If you are the type to play well, then blow up on a hole because you systematically (meaning in a way not accounted for by a random, normal distribution) fail in execution or strategically playing a hole, it doesn't matter what the average says, its meaningless in a context where the focus should be on the tails of the distribution (and "thinning" them, ironically), not the center.

 

Saying that something works most of the time for most people only has meaning in a distribution with really tight variation around the mean - I very much doubt swings for players beyond the pros look like this distributionally (though I could be convinced with data). Then, you have to begin to account for the total absence of independent observations that statistical analysis (unless you are a Bayesian) relies on. How you played with a specific club on the last hole absolutely affects how you play with that club on the next, including whether you play that club at all.

 

I'm not saying you can't learn something from statistics, but not without knowing what the distribution of the data looks like for a person with particular, systematic patterns. And, a lot more discussion should center around the trade-off in strategizing around the center of the statistical distribution versus the tails.

Frankly, that sounded really intelligent. Also frankly, I would have a hard time arguing that against Mr Fawcett.

Also, Also frankly, if you choose to fight that battle on twitter please let me know and I’ll pop my popcorn

[me05501]

On 5/11/2023 at 8:59 PM, Unteachable said:

almost every time i make what is supposed to be the "smart" play and tee off with 3w or hybrid i screw it up and regret it

 

Very common. I think it comes down to the destructive power of doubt and uncertainty. 

 

If we're dropping down from driver there's a good chance we're not totally bought into our approach to the hole in the first place. Then we end up with less club in our hands which is different from our usual pattern, and that is like adding fertilizer to the doubt. It's hard to make a good swing when we're scared of the outcome. 

 

The better mental approach is to make a positive, pro-active decision to use the fairway wood or driving iron and convince ourselves that it's the best play for the hole. Whatever it takes to make a confident swing instead of a tentative one. 

[Chucktown]

As someone with borderline yips with the driver, hitting 3 wood off the tee gives me much more confidence. Admittedly I’ve always been a good fairway wood player though. 290 in the fairway sure beats 315 and OB.

[North Butte]

5 minutes ago, me05501 said:

 

Very common. I think it comes down to the destructive power of doubt and uncertainty. 

 

If we're dropping down from driver there's a good chance we're not totally bought into our approach to the hole in the first place. Then we end up with less club in our hands which is different from our usual pattern, and that is like adding fertilizer to the doubt. It's hard to make a good swing when we're scared of the outcome. 

 

The better mental approach is to make a positive, pro-active decision to use the fairway wood or driving iron and convince ourselves that it's the best play for the hole. Whatever it takes to make a confident swing instead of a tentative one. 

If there's a certain layup area you feel is strategically optimum for playing a hole and it takes a driving iron or 3-wood to hit into that area, it's possible to do that in a confident, aggressive stroke aimed specifically at that target zone.

 

If you're hitting driving iron or 3-wood because a hole is narrow and you're worrying you'll hook or block your driver, that is by definition a fearful choice. It is VERY hard to make a decision based on fear and then when it comes time to execute, to do so from a position of confidence. 

 

I do think it's possible to learn how to psych yourself into a confident state for the few seconds it takes to make a swing, even though you are scared of the outcome, but that's a very difficult skill. 

[skyleralan]

The average guy should really just carry two drivers......a regular full length and then a shorter driver at like 3-5wd length to be used on tighter holes.  Dropping down to a club with a significantly smaller head/sweet spot usually doesn't go well for most. 

 

 

[AdExec]

Brnr Mini 13.5  is soooo money. Auto pilot 265-280 off the tee depending on fade or draw. 
 

I rarely find trouble with my driver but only comfortable hitting a fade with it. It’s really freed up my game to swing away at it with driver and have total control and shot shaping with the mini as needed. 

[Pepperturbo]

On 5/10/2023 at 12:20 PM, jholz said:

If I'm really looking to put the ball in a specific area, I'll go down to a hybrid or iron.

Agree 100%.  Three wood is nice, but my 2 iron is point and shoot, better.  Today, too many people think DRIVER is the only answer; play like the pros, except that attitude is sort of easy to take money from.  Having played over ten years of InterClub match play and regional am events, MOST amateurs don't have the next shot from the junk.  The rough we amateurs face is NOT like the somewhat long pampered grass that tour pros enjoy.  Thus, good reason not to follow what Pros do or, for that matter, what trends on DBs.  LOL recipe for losing money.

 

I had to smile when reading "if players have adequate room to hit driver based on understanding their shot pattern- there is no advantage to playing a shorter club to try to be more accurate."  Sounds like something out of an internet instruction video. LOL

[dubbelbogey]

If the rough is, in fact, that difficult to hit out of, then that should absolutely be accounted for in determining where to hit a drive. Sure, I play courses where the rough is just that nasty, and I consider hitting into it nearly equivalent to a penalty shot. And if my full driver dispersion puts that unduly into play, I'll choose another shot/another club - and that (for me) is virtually never a 3w.

 

However, I also play plenty of  courses where the rough is not so bad, and I do have confidence to hit the green from those conditions, so driver can well be a smart play even if the ball ends up in that rough.

 

Again, it's not driver at all cost - nobody who plays even semi-smart golf is doing that (not even the pros). It's as far as possible without putting trouble into (undue) play. Trouble can be trees, sand, water, OB or just plain nasty rough. Pay attention and play accordingly.

 

 

Edited May 17, 2023 by dubbelbogey

[Eazy Mac]

Doesn't pin position also come into play for the professional or better golfer? e.g. using a 2 iron/3 wood off the tee over driver to have better chance at putting the ball on the right or left side of the fairway, to aim at a right or left or front or back pin, or away from a greenside bunker, etc. ?