When you’re getting together a set of golf clubs to play with or looking at altering the clubs that you have in your bag, one area that some people struggle to change is the long irons. That’s simply because well, I paid for that set with those long irons in it, when I, when I purchased them, they were sand wedged two to 3-iron. And I like my 3-iron, once in every 14 shots, I hit it quite straight down the middle so I’d like to keep that. But then what they’re not considering is what value a fairway wood or a hybrid club might have in their sets. So, there’s a reluctance to change away from the norm, the classic 3- iron to sand wedge sets.

But like you say, if you ask most golfers to hit a 3- iron for you, one in a few that will connect well with. The club with a 3-iron four-iron that type of long iron very difficult to hit, it doesn’t spin the ball enough to really get the ball up in the air and flying, not a very big sweet spot and quite a long awkward to use shaft. For a lot of golfers, they’d be better changing to a more lofted fairway or hybrid wood.

So a fairway wood has all its weight low and deep at the bottom of the club phase that’s helping us design to help get underneath the golf ball and fly the ball up into the air. You’d also often find that the fairway woods different to long irons, probably have graphite shafts in them. That’s a lighter weight shaft; the lighter weight shaft still allows you to swing the club head even faster than a long iron.

So, a light weight shaft, a descent amount of loft and weight low and deep in the head will combine to give you a fairway wood shot that’s higher, and easier more consistently hit than a long iron. So if you’re struggling with your long irons, consider the switch to fairway woods.