How to Hit a 3-Wood From the Fairway, Golf (Video) - Lesson by PGA Pro Pete Styles
How to Hit a 3-Wood From the Fairway, Golf (Video) - Lesson by PGA Pro Pete Styles

Hitting a long shot from the fairway is often one of the most toughest shots in golf and I have actually taken a 3 wood to the golf ball here, but before I choose my basic 3 wood I have to consider a few fixed problem things. Firstly stop and think how far have I got to go, do I require a 3 wood. Secondly what is my lie like, I see an awful lot of golfers just walk up to one of these balls pulling their 3 wood out of their bag as they go setting up to the ball and then realizing that the lie isn't very good. We need a really good correct lie, we are only taking 13 or 15 degrees as your 3 wood probably has we need a good lie to be able to get underneath the ball to create and cause it to lift with height. If the lie isn't very good choose your 5 wood or 7 wood or maybe even a hybrid club to get down into the back of the golf ball a little bit more. Then as you actually setup the ball couple of things you should be considering with your address position. We play the ball just a couple of inches inside the left foot so it’s not as far forward as it would be against your heel for let’s say your driver, just a couple of inches back for the right handed golfer from your left foot. Then as you set up you could just grip down an inch on the 3 wood as well, I will give you a little bit more control. Maybe not maximum distance but a bit more chance of hitting a good consistent strike onto the fairway.

As I make my swing here, I am not going to over swing too far, I am going to be quite controlled over my backswing because again I need accuracy and then I need a really good strike. Now as I come down into impact it’s a balance between getting a good contact on the golf ball but not bearing it down into the floor, we see two main faults there, either people taking the 3 wood too far back in their stance trying to strike down on it to get a good contact and when they do contact it, it just stoops too low and maybe even catches in the long grass in front of them or by having the ball forwards leaning back like they do for driver trying to sweep the ball and scoop the ball into the air contacting the ground slightly before.

So when you are practicing have a little think about which one you are most prone to doing. Do you hit a good contact but hit it too low or do you lean back and try and scoop it up into the air. Then we just need to try and find a balance so a ball position just 2 inches inside the left instead a little grip down just by an inch keep the nice balance backswing not too far, a good movement into your left side and just feel like you are just going to sweep the turf there, maybe just taking the very tops of the grass, you don’t really want to dig down into the roots but likewise trying to take the ball off cleanly could mean that you thin it a little bit. So if I setup here and just try and nit one of the surface nicely and you can just hear that as I came through the ball just skim through the turf, just to the top soft of the grass got a nice flight out in my 3 wood there, nicely down there and then play. So that’s how I would encourage you to play your 3 wood if you are playing it from the floor.

 2012-07-16

Hitting a long shot from the fairway is often one of the most toughest shots in golf and I have actually taken a 3 wood to the golf ball here, but before I choose my basic 3 wood I have to consider a few fixed problem things. Firstly stop and think how far have I got to go, do I require a 3 wood. Secondly what is my lie like, I see an awful lot of golfers just walk up to one of these balls pulling their 3 wood out of their bag as they go setting up to the ball and then realizing that the lie isn't very good. We need a really good correct lie, we are only taking 13 or 15 degrees as your 3 wood probably has we need a good lie to be able to get underneath the ball to create and cause it to lift with height. If the lie isn't very good choose your 5 wood or 7 wood or maybe even a hybrid club to get down into the back of the golf ball a little bit more. Then as you actually setup the ball couple of things you should be considering with your address position. We play the ball just a couple of inches inside the left foot so it’s not as far forward as it would be against your heel for let’s say your driver, just a couple of inches back for the right handed golfer from your left foot. Then as you set up you could just grip down an inch on the 3 wood as well, I will give you a little bit more control. Maybe not maximum distance but a bit more chance of hitting a good consistent strike onto the fairway.

As I make my swing here, I am not going to over swing too far, I am going to be quite controlled over my backswing because again I need accuracy and then I need a really good strike. Now as I come down into impact it’s a balance between getting a good contact on the golf ball but not bearing it down into the floor, we see two main faults there, either people taking the 3 wood too far back in their stance trying to strike down on it to get a good contact and when they do contact it, it just stoops too low and maybe even catches in the long grass in front of them or by having the ball forwards leaning back like they do for driver trying to sweep the ball and scoop the ball into the air contacting the ground slightly before.

So when you are practicing have a little think about which one you are most prone to doing. Do you hit a good contact but hit it too low or do you lean back and try and scoop it up into the air. Then we just need to try and find a balance so a ball position just 2 inches inside the left instead a little grip down just by an inch keep the nice balance backswing not too far, a good movement into your left side and just feel like you are just going to sweep the turf there, maybe just taking the very tops of the grass, you don’t really want to dig down into the roots but likewise trying to take the ball off cleanly could mean that you thin it a little bit. So if I setup here and just try and nit one of the surface nicely and you can just hear that as I came through the ball just skim through the turf, just to the top soft of the grass got a nice flight out in my 3 wood there, nicely down there and then play. So that’s how I would encourage you to play your 3 wood if you are playing it from the floor.