Anyone agree with this? Personally, I think this is way off base! Matter of fact, I don’t carry a 5Metal. I carry 9.5, 14* 3Metal, 18Hybrid, 23 7Metal. I’d be lost without the 3Metal. In a normal round, I use the 3 at least 5/6 times a round or more if the Driver doesn’t behave. Love to hear opinions on this.
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I haven’t carried a 3 wood/metal for 10+ years. I am thinking about trying out a 7 wood though for added distance on par 5’s.
I’m a relatively short hitter though…average drive is probably 240-250. I’ve never been able to hit a 3 wood off the fairway…I’d prefer an iron or hybrid…suits my steeper swing better, even though I lose distance…better than losing the ball.
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For most players, I think he’s spot-on. Most players, realistically, can’t use the 3W (“3-metal”? Is Ben Wright broadcasting again, LOL.) off the fairway on anything other than a perfectly fluffy lie. Look around: what happens when most people you play with, wait for the group on that par-5 green to “clear out, because I can totally get there from here with my 3 wood.”? Tops, slices right into the woods, and other shenanigans, right? And if they’re teeing off with it because they’re that much more accurate, then why have a driver?
An extra wedge, to assist us in getting within Pelz’s Golden Radius, seems like a much more useful club to have in the bag. I have debated, on one particular course I play, eliminating my 5W in favor of another wedge, simply because I don’t have a projected 220-235 yd shot for any tee or approach. But I usually can hit my 3W off a tight lie. Guessing most of the players this coach sees, can’t.
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I actually still own 3woods…amongst a bunch of clubs sitting in the basement….lol. Almost every person I play with out here has a 3 wood in the bag and most of the people I play with use it. I use it to get home on our 515 yd par 5 if I get that 260yd perfect tee shot and on a couple of our 90* par 4s it’s just a necessary club for many. I have no issue striking it off tight lies, fairways or light rough sitting up. I usually advise my partners never to try swiping at a ball that is sitting down at all and that a well struck 5w or 7w will go as far. I carry 4 wedges. My club set up is basically separated by 10yds per give or take a couple yards out to 225-230 one of my partners has a setup of 11, 9, 7, 5, 3 “woods”. It seems to work for him but he only Carries 2 wedges. He’s pretty adept with them too. I don’t think there is any special way to set up ure bag I mean Phil carried 2 Drivers. I just thought the article was interesting most people I play with just don’t hit the ball the distances they need. If you are only actually maxing out the driver 210-215, I know I see it, that 5w is in no way, shape or form getting u to the front of a green on a 400yd par 4 and on par 5s over 500 yds they have a mid iron in for a 3rd shot while I might have a flip wedge. You can’t use scoring clubs unless you get into position to hit them. That’s just my thought. If you can’t hit it, you really need to work on that.
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Which is why Fawcett’s advice on clubbing works so well. Most of us don’t realize our actual iron distance dispersion per club, instead of our ideal iron distance dispersion. So we hit our average iron shot, instead of the 90th percentile shot we think we can always do, hit it short, and start muttering about how bad I am at this…
I really liked what, to pick on him, @Craigers was sharing with us after his Trackman (or Foresight, I forget) fitting. After something like that, now you have a spread to work with. Know where the median of that spread is, and you know how far you realistically hit each of your clubs. Then figure out ways to fill what gaps you have.
Similarly, the more I try and practice Pelz’s methods in the Short Game Bible, the more I realize I’m nowhere near as uniform in my distribution of finesse swing distances as I’d like, and an additional wedge seems like it could only help. Versus a wood that I may not even hit that round.
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It’s a GC Hawk. Overall, my strategy on bag building this season was to figure out what shots I wanted to hit (not just distance, but also shot shape and trajectory)… I carry a driving iron and a hybrid to cover bother yardages (220 and 230) but also to have a low flighted shot (DI) and the high, soft shot (hybrid)… I have the speed to hit the driving iron, though.
I carry and love my 3 wood (Srixon 13+, which is mainly a tee club for me), but I have plenty of speed to get it done… I think it’s less “don’t carry a 3 wood” and more figure out what shot you are trying to hit with your fairway wood and find a club that does that.
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This is something I’m still debating. Years ago I had given up the 3w and 5w for a 4w and 7w with good results, but then the fitter put me into a 3w and 3h. This also worked well until the faces on both flattened and I had to replace them.
I haven’t been able to make the replacements work as well and I sometimes struggle picking a club for the doglegs. Off the tee I definitely hit my 3w longer than a 5w and I generally need that yardage for a dogleg.
Any way my Winter/Spring project will be to find or tweak some sort of fairway wood and hybrid. Sadly they really are dogleg (or long par 3) tee shot only clubs. I never hit a fairway wood off the deck at my club. The course is too tight with too much OB and I am not consistent enough off the deck even with a 5w.
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Here’s another take and it’s probably going to be too long to get to my point. I’m goofy. I still own my original Blades from 84…I will play a round or two every year with them AND I practice on the range and into the net with them because only a pure strike makes the ball go and it helps hone my swing before I start using my clubs. My iron set 2-SW that I purchased in 1990 are what’s in the bag!. (I also own a complete back-up set of the same clubs JIC I lose one) They are basically irreplaceable. My irons have been re-shafted 4x over the years and re-gripped every year. I also have a set of four CG12 Wedges that are currently crafted for me, by me, in my bag. I have a plethora of “woods”, metals and hybrids accumulated throughout the years in the basement. All of the “woods” I do use are newer technology, so I’m not behind…My Standard bag is a 9.5*, 14*(3W), 18*(hybrid), 22*(7W). Now, I also own 12* (2W), 15*(3W), 19*(4W), 21*(Hybrid) in the basement or car. Believe it or not I will tweak my bag according to the weather or where we are playing…since I’ve played like 95% of all the courses in the area several times. I don’t use my sets SW, PW, 9i anymore, I use my 4wedge system (60, 54,50,46). For me, I do find it necessary, especially now, to have something I can hit 225-230 which for me is the 3W. The 18* can go 210-220, the 22* can go 195-205. The Driver goes 235-260 depending on the strike. So, if I play a Par5 that is 535 or more and I only hit it 250ish, I’d still really like the opportunity to get home in 2 and the 3w is the only club that allows that. And on sharp doglegs, or very tight holes, I know I can hit my 3w with alot less chance of going “sideways” than my Driver…ALOT! For me that 12* up to 15* 3 wood is irreplaceable…Here’s the thing mortals do not hit 4i and 5i 250+ yards like you see on the TV nor do they hit 7i and 8i 200+ like you see on TV…to me that article was written for golfers that are “better than most”.
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Seems to me that the Pro’s advice is played out in the folks I play with but I’m more amused by the deeper, and more disturbing point, made by the guy who wrote the article. He’s going to consider the pro’s advice even though he loves his 3 wood and hits it really well. That’s the real sickness in golf - people listening to others instead of just believing in their own experience - and that’s encouraged by all the folks hawking lessons and gear. I only read the golf.com article out of curiosity and I’m sure not going to take the advice seriously. But I’m a six and recently replaced an Nickent 15 degree three wood with a Srixon 13.5, which I hit quite reliably, but hardly perfectly.
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I totally agree Tom!. The last sentence of the article got me…you don’t score with your 3w you score with your Wedges. First, you have to be able to get in position to score with your Wedges, or you are just using them to SAVE a score. Second, you don’t score with your Wedges per se…you actually score with your putter! The Wedges will put you in a position to score if you can hit it long enough off a tee. On 400+ yd holes, it is very rare for me to be hitting a Wedge into a hole. I’m hitting 7i on out to 7w usually. Now, on the 330-380 yd holes, yes I am using a Wedge. My partners…even from the Gold Tees they don’t get a Wedge in their hands that often, at least not as often as me. I spot them 50-75yds off the tee box and I have a Wedge in hand from like 120, and they are hitting 7i or 8i 120. Clubs that will get them distance is what they need. When you are into the “super-senior” category you lose distance…period and you need every bit you can find.
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I swore there were some studies years ago (Maybe Wishon?) that concluded that most “hackers” couldn’t reliably hit a fairway wood off the deck that was longer than 42". That was a 5 wood although clubs keep getting longer. That made sense to me as the longer a club got the harder time I had hitting it without teeing it up.
I’d sort of like to give up the 3 wood since I can’t hit it well off the deck, but I can hit it off the tee and during a round I may use it on 5 par 4’s where driver can put me through the fairway into trouble.
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Can you achieve the same result by taking a 3/4 swing with your driver? I get that altering your swing might make things worse, but if you could do it, it’d allow you to add another club.
I’m sounding a bit monomaniacal about this, but if adding another wedge enables us to fill in a distance gap or three, in that 75 yds and in range, that seems like a much more useful option than a club we might be able to replace with a swing change. I just really, really like the idea of knowing that, no matter what yardage we have to the hole inside 75 yds, we have a consistent shot that’ll get us inside of 8 feet.
Now, making that idea a reality? Is proving difficult for me, so far…
EDIT: and that totally sounds like something Wishon would write. Then again, he thinks we should all be hitting 44 inch drivers and shorter, so who knows?
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Thank God I’m not on Tour, cuz I’d have to lop a 1/2" off my Driver (46.5). My 3w is 43". I have no issues hitting woods. Maybe because I was taught the correct way to swing my clubs. I do see my partners struggle, but they are mostly self taught and actually play ok in general. They are never going to play consistently in the high 70 to mid 80 range because of that (they will occasionally), but their game is not built to do so even though they actually have the talent to do so. Their misses with longer clubs is that they lose spine angle because with a “longer” club the swing breaks down on the downswing and all stored energy is gone and the mind tells the hands to try and save the strike, so the swing gets rushed and you either top it or fat it. When they stay in the swing, they actually hit it very well and can get 170 out of a 3w. I mean most of the guys that post on this site take the game reasonably seriously, they work on their games, they take lessons, etc. Anyone can play this game, much like anyone can bowl or play basketball. Very few put in the work or time it takes to only get incrementally better. I’m certain, most if you take the time to learn to swing correctly…you can hit any club in the bag .reasonably consistently.
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Sometimes, but not reliably. More than half the time I can hit driver because I’m just not swinging well enough to go through the fairway, but I hate when I hit it 250-270 straight and now it’s going to take a miracle to get back to the fairway assuming I can find the ball. The frustrating part is that 200-210 yards doesn’t always get you a look around the corner either. You want 220-230 from the Whites on many of the doglegs. The course is only about 6000 yards, but a bit tricked up in many respects and even the big hitters can’t really overpower it without a lot of risk.
FWIW I already carry PW, GW, SW and LW. I have dropped a longer club for a 64* a few times, but that’s a club you need to practice with regularly and I think 60* is enough.
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I don’t really alter my swing per se, as my normal swing is basically 3/4 kinda Rahmbo-ish looking. I alter stance and ball position (open/closed/square–ball up or back), follow thru (high/low finish) or choke down on the grip. I use 2.0 Jumbo Grips with very little taper, if you choke down and execute your stock swing, (you also have to lower your CIG when you do that) you will lose 10-15 yds off your stock yardage…Altering your swing…wow…that can really develop into bad habits adjustment here, there and everywhere. Then you are totally mucked up!
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Got it. I only have 3 wedges now, and I’m finding a bit too much yardage clustering, despite the substantially different shots. Not to mention I’m feeling the same trying to duplicate Pelz’s finesse swing motion, as I did long ago trying to throw a spiral, playing catch with my Dad… “You…, 'ya just throw it like this! Damn it!” It’s soooooo easy. Just swing your whole body! Grrr.
Sounds like a tough, fun course.
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Not alter it, per se. Just don’t take it back so far. I have a driver swing where I’m stepping on it, and go-ing, vs. one where I’m going what feels like 3/4, then dropping and swinging through. One is a lot more accurate than the other…
I tell you, videotaping your swing is eye-opening. Holy over-extension Batman!
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I had D,3w,5w,4h in my bag…couldn’t hit the 4h and the 5w seemed to just naturally draw when i used it…well draw/hook lol. I got fitted for new woods by a Callaway rep at a local range and followed it testing TM’s, Ping and a few other brands before settling on Callaway Epic max D,5w and 7w…I went for a shorter shaft on the driver and for the course I play every week with my friend since I changed the woods at the end of Aug I have broken 90 9 times out of 12 rounds.
More importantly I now have more confidence in using the 5&7 a lot more during the round now off of the fairway…even if I don’t always hit them as well as I hope-I at least feel I can take in a 180-210 shot to a green now whereas before I wouldn’t entertain it.
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Agreed (higher handicapper version).
Played a 4W this past season that I … sometimes but not always … hit decently enough off the tee; I do not have the skill nor the swing speed to even bother with it off the fairway.
The club after that for me is a 7W which I could hit well enough from the fairway or very light rough.
Next season gonna try and get the driver going and add a very player-friendly GI type of 5W that I could use on both tee and fairway. 
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Nice! …that’s where I’d like to try to get to … as always: Work In Progress!
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