Natalie Adams – PGA Teaching Pro

If you’re looking to improve your golf game then one of the best ways you could do this as a lady golfer is to consider using hybrids or rescue clubs or utility clubs instead of your traditional irons and fairway woods. A hybrid, a rescue, and a utility, they all mean the same thing they’re all a hybrid club. And a hybrid club is a mix of an iron and a wood but it’s the best of both worlds. So if we have a look at this hybrid here from Thomas Golf we’ll see that it’s got a really large head so it looks very similar to a wood but it’s the length of an iron. So the larger head means it’s much, much easier to hit and the shorter shaft again means you’ve got much more control over it like you would with your irons. So it’s the best of both worlds it’s the best of a wood mixed in with the best of an iron. And have a look on the Thomas golf website because I really do, a great range, loads of loft options, and you should see that it really brings your golf game on.

Now the reason for why you would want to swap on to these hybrids is that to start with they’re much, much easier to hit than the longer irons. When you look at the size of the club head there that you’ve got to strike the ball with it is much bigger than you’d find with one of the larger irons. So to start with it looks a lot easier to hit, you’ve got a much wider sole rather than that the thin top narrow edge of a long iron. So confidence wise when you set that club head up to the ball you feel like you’re going to be able to hit it because it’s much bigger. The bigger club head also means it has a much larger sweet spot. And the sweet spot is a center of the club face here, which is normally about the size of a coin, but the bigger the club head gets, the bigger the sweet spot gets. So this means now if you hit from the sweet spot you get maximum distance and maximum control over accuracy. So with the bigger sweet spot you can hit more off center shots but still get away with them because you’ll retain the distance that you hit and the direction, whereas a smaller sweet spots that you’d find in your longer irons again you’ve got to much more accurate to get away with them. So these clubs are a lot more forgiving for that reason.

Also with the larger head, the club has a larger moment of inertia. Now the best way to think of moment of inertia is, it’s the clubs heads ability to resist twisting. If you think of how an ice skater would spin, the skater will go much faster if they put their hands close to their body they’ll spin a lot quicker. If they put their hands out they’ll spin a lot slower and it’s the same with the club head, if the club head is smaller which is like the ice skater having their hands close to the body, the club head can’t resist — the twisting action is much as the ice skater come when the hands are out, this is like having the larger club head. So now if you hit off center with a hybrid club and you hit it more towards the toe, what would normally happen is that the impact would be made here so the club will slow down here but nothing will slow this area of the club down, so the club face will flip, but because this club has a larger moment of inertia it can resist that twisting effect. So even though you might hit from off the toe or off the heel the club face will still go straight, it will resist wanting to twist and you’ll get a much straighter shot.

So much bigger club head looks a lot easier to hit you’re going to be more confident, larger sweet spot, larger moment of inertia, so just making this club a lot, lot easier to hit. The final thing to say about a hybrid is leading edge to the bottom part of the club here in the sole, this leading edge isn’t designed to dig into the turf, so because it’s not designed to dig in you’ll find that you can strike the ball a lot, lot cleaner and that you’re not taking the turf as much and the wider sole will allow the club to glide through the shot and really keep the speed of the club head up, helping you to deliver longer golf shots. So, have a look at hitting these hybrids they’re so much easier to hit than the longer irons. You’ll find that you really improve your golf game by putting these hybrids into your golf bag and as I said before have a look at Thomas golf because they do a really wide variety of hybrids, low to different loft options and basically you could replace all the irons in your bag and become a much better golfer overnight.