3 Wood Struggles

So, mentioned this in my swing thread but I did flightscope work yesterday to find out the gapping in the upper end of my bag. I was pretty sure going in what I needed but numbers confirmed that I need a fairway wood to go between my 18* hybrid and driver. The trouble I have is I averaged 215 carry with range balls with my hybrid but I couldn't find a 3 wood that I could really hit consistently and the best distance I got on any of the ones I tried was low 220's carry. I didn't have a ton of trouble actually getting the ball in the air but they just dropped short of the needed distance. They were all 15* 3 woods and I guess I could probably squeeze out that extra needed yardage for the gap if I pushed it up to 14*, however I am worried that pushing the loft lower would end up causing me to struggle with launching the ball from the ground. My question is this, is it worthwhile continuing to work on finding a 3 wood or is the distance that I'm looking at not really worth trying to cover?

As you can see here, there were only a couple 3 wood shots that landed in the area I would need to cover. I tried probably 10 different 3 woods. All numbers are carry distance. The 3 woods that had the best numbers were Ping i25, Titleist 913f, and Cobra BioCell. Each of these drivers had some carries out just under to just over 220 with one out to 227 max. I did not look at anything newer because I'm trying to keep cost down and I didn't think that anything from this year would really make much difference anyway.

The guy at the range who was helping me with picking different clubs to try basically said I need to learn to hit the things, I've just got a mental block about fairway woods because I've always struggled with them *I didn't notice until now that I typed "stuggle" in the title*. He said I can come in and grab one and practice until I get comfortable with it and can be consistent. The thing about the shot zone for the 3w is that it was for all of them. Some I wasn't able to hit at all and others I hit pretty well but just not very far. Either way I'll probably just get one from inside when I go to the range and practice until I get to a point where I can hit it well before buying one.

Thanks for fixing the title, and yeah the guy is a really low pressure sales person. He's firm about making sure you are happy with what you buy, he doesn't want to just sell you a club to make money. He never even charged me for using the flightscope either.

Why do you need a club that goes 230 yards? Is there a 230 yard par 3 on the course you usually play?

I personally don't think you need a club in between your driver and hybrid. Driver + hybrid + short iron probably works nicely on most par 5s for you.

Yes, driver + hybrid puts me nearly on for most par 5s. There is no other gap in my bag outside of the one between hybrid and driver so I'm looking at covering as many scenarios as I can.

I actually got a Titleist 913 F 3 wood to try out today, problem was that I never had a chance to use it so I'm hoping to get out on the course in the next few days to give it a shot.

I took the 3 wood back today, never got a chance to use it yesterday. While there I asked about any cheaper used 3 woods I could try out. He did have a rockeballz 5w that I tried out. I had about 220 carry average with it but there was some variable wind I was hitting into. The shaft length on the Titleist 3 wood and the Rocketballz 5 wood were the same. I had a really good dispersion with the 5 wood, it was even tighter than the 2 hybrid was. So I bought the 5w for 45 including tax. I figure it's something cheap that I can use to get better and more confident with hitting a fairway wood.

200-220 yards with wood 3 is just fine, no? I'm hitting about the same distance with my wood 3 and I fele that for my level of play that is more than enough. I do see that you are having roubles finding a constant distance with your 3 wood. This is mainly because a 3 wood is one of the hardest clubs to hit. It may take a while for you to get it right but it should work out.

A 3 wood is and remains a difficult club. In the beginning I hated that club. Topping, chunking, hooking, slicing. It was pure horror. But I kept on trying and trying and after some tweaks (especially my grip) I can now say that the 3 wood is actually one of my best clubs. From tee I rarely waste a shot. From the deck is a little higher chance of failure (topping), but still pretty good.

However I see that you hit your 4 iron about as far as your (currentl) best wood shots, so maybe you should stick with iron play?

Actually the 5w I picked up is doing a pretty good job of hitting the distance I was looking for. At around 250 off the tee and 230ish off the ground and I have had better luck with it than I did with the 3 woods I was trying out.