Fairway Woods Help

[ncb09]

Ryt... Im an average sort of player, I hit in the 80s-90s, I main problem at the moment is my fairway woods (or lack of fairway wood), I cnt/wont hit my 3 wood and have even got rid of my 5. I have my RAM hybrid, and can hit some nice shots with it, but still feel Im missing some yards without using my woods. I have recently bought a Nike t40 3 wood and I want to hit it, I took it to the range and duffed every shot so still dont dare to take it out the bag when Im on the course. I dont know if its phycological that I cnt hit them, but any tips on how to play a wood would be very much appreciated.

[tterrag]

I think that you need to hit down on your woods slightly, obviously not as much as a wedge, but disturb the ground. This increases distance and height. Just take a look at Tiger. I think it is a misnomer that you need to sweep you woods. Even on a driver, you are barely supposed to hit down on it. A good swing thought for this is to try to make a descending blow. If you need to see it visually, I suggest you go on youtube and search "Tiger Woods 3 woods contact" or something.

Hope this helped,
Garrett

[ks8829]

Practice hitting your hybrid with your feet together and once you have made solid contact switch to your 5 wood and then your 3 wood. Remembering that your are focusing on solid contact. I try to concentrate on a compact swing and to keep my hands relatively close to my body and focus on my take away remembering that the swing is a circle and that you want to hit the ball at the lowest part of the circle.

[whetstone]

I'm in the exact same situation, and play golf at the same level as you. I just started a topic in Golf Talk about adding some longer hybrids to my bag. For whatever reason I don't hit fairway woods well, but the one hybrid I have now is like money in the bank, so my answer is more hybrids... problem solved, I should be a 7 hdcp in about 2 weeks by doing this, right?

[BOOMSHANKA]

Are you playing your ball to far forward?

[ncb09]

whetestone, least im not the only 1 haha! cheers for the replys guys, I will re look at my stance and try get it sorted! thank you all again, I'll keep posted on my progress!

[J_Bone]

I had the same problem. Don't know if this will help. but I noticed I was trying to kill it. I was out of tempo and over swinging.

[ncb09]

Cheers J_bone... this could be the problem, I have been trying to hit my woods so hard, just to hit them, I'll try slowing it all down!

[Rebel_Golfer]

Same problem here. Verified it on the course again yesterday. Tried to hit the 5 wood and totally swept across the face and dead-sliced it into the woods. I'm thinking of going to more hybrid route, too. I have one now that I can hit fairly decently most of the time, but need more practice with it. Other than that, it's just going to be sticking to 4 and 5 irons and getting into position for a shorter approach.

[DriverTees]

Think rhythm, not speed. Don't think slow, think one, two. This goes for all of your clubs. Anyways, if you play in the high 80's you likely won't even benefit from woods. No offense, but hitting it O.B once more is already is a loss situation versus iron only play.

[Rebel_Golfer]

Think rhythm, not speed. Don't think slow, think one, two. This goes for all of your clubs. Anyways, if you play in the high 80's you likely won't even benefit from woods. No offense, but hitting it O.B once more is already is a loss situation versus iron only play.

Yep, after that happened on the very next par 5 I hit Driver, 5 iron, 8 iron. Got the GIR and the par.

[westcyderydin]

like everyone else is saying, hit the ball and then the ground. or in other words hitting down on it very slightly. and also, i had an old crappy 5 wood in my bag with a super wippy shaft that i would just never hit and i ended up just taking it out of my bag. then i went down to the golf store and they had a good selection of used drivers, woods, and hybrids. so i picked myself up a cobra baffler 2 hybrid for 25 bucks. it was maybe three seasons old. works very well. easier to hit off of the ground and goes 230 yards or so. (while my 3 iron goes 210). so it may be a bit shorter than a wood might be but its easy to hit and im glad i bought it.

[misty_mountainhop]

I had the same problem. Don't know if this will help. but I noticed I was trying to kill it. I was out of tempo and over swinging.

What he said! Swing easy...or at least so it feels easy. Good distance comes from a decent contact first and foremost. I'll wager you're (subconciously) thinking "This is meant to go miles...therefore I have to swing out of my shoes"...

[ncb09]

I'll wager you're (subconciously) thinking "This is meant to go miles...therefore I have to swing out of my shoes"

Ye as soon as I pull my 3wood... its in my head that It should go further than if i pull an iron, then ends up not even goin as far as my pissin putter!!

[dhanson]

I was having similar problems with my woods for a while. Every online-instructor tells you to move the ball forward in your stance, anywhere from the center of your stance to off the heel of your front foot. They then suggest using more of a sweeping motion (as mentioned earlier), which, for me at least, still produced a lot of topped shots that dribble 20 yards down the fairway. I think this video of Tiger Woods provides a pretty good example of things mentioned earlier. Hitting down on the ball and moving the ball further back in your stance.

The way he positions his ball is much more similar to his irons than his driver.

[Tifosinumerouno]

I was having a problem with hitting my 3 wood off of the fairway for a while (well, usually the rough!), but was hitting it extremely well off of the tee. So I started thinking about what the differences were, and I figured out I was still trying to play the three wood off of my left heel like I was with the teed up ball. So I moved the ball back in my stance more, and think about trying to catch the ball on the way down while I swing, and have dramatically impoved from the grass. I still occasionally hit the errant slice off of the ground, but the ball does get up in the air, which used to be the problem.

[saevel25]

My key swing though for fairway woods, which i should have considered for all my swing. I had the issue of hanging back on my back foot, but when i swung my fairway woods, i wouldn't do that, i would try my best to get to my left side, and i try to take a small divot. But i play the ball like a long iron..

[The Recreational Golfer]

I started having trouble hitting my 3W off the turf, and finally gave up trying to fix the problem when I realized that my 2H gets me almost the same distance and it a LOT easier to hit well, and it wasn't like I has trying to hit greens with the 3W anyway, so the 3W came out of my bag. I haven't missed it a bit, and it made room for another club in the bag for shots around the green. Really, if you're not hitting greens with this club, but just using it to eating up yards in the fairway, dump your 3W for a strong hybrid club.

If you insist, several people above have the right idea. Play the ball in the center of your stance and hit down on it like it's an iron. Trying to sweep a 3W off the ground is the more difficult approach.