Hidden Ability? (how I hit an unexpected 3 wood)

[Hacker James]

Every once in awhile "stuff" happens.  

Playing a round of mediocre golf having not been out on the course in several weeks with more of my share of short drives, missed approaches, and putts not dropping; I happened on this rather long par four, hit my drive about 180, then faced with a fairway wood in to the green. I was in the middle of the fairway, slight uphill, green not visible. Longest club other than driver is my 3 wood. Anyway, I hit that thing solid, and it took off and landed about ten yards in front of the green. (there was some downhill roll involved after going over the rise) I did not measure it, but it was longer than my drive, and much longer than I expected.  I really could not tell  you what happened, nothing unusual to be sure, or at least it felt "normal" (whatever that means).  I have experienced unexpected shots on the 18th like just about everybody else, but this occurred in the middle of the round. Score, not terrible I wrote down an 87.   Oh well....go figure... "stuff happens".

Edited November 10, 2017 by Hacker James

[Vinny Cap]

Keep that 3W warm in the bag and try it off the Tee instead of the Driver next round.

I had a similar shot with my 5W, far shot, up hill because of a bad drive and it was on the dance floor looking at an 18' bird.  2 putted for par and I always wonder if I can take it out again and do the same shot.

[Hacker James]

30 minutes ago, Vinny Cap said:

Keep that 3W warm in the bag and try it off the Tee instead of the Driver next round.

I had a similar shot with my 5W, far shot, up hill because of a bad drive and it was on the dance floor looking at an 18' bird.  2 putted for par and I always wonder if I can take it out again and do the same shot.

ya know.....I should have remembered that. A while back, I did that very thing and shot an 81 on a 69.1/122 using my 3W for the majority of tee shots. That coupled with the questionable advice here, that unless you can use your driver, you will never improve.  Another thing this reminds me of, is that for a time I wanted to trade my Exotics XCG7 Driver for an XCG7 BETA (same as my 3W). The Beta is a little smaller, deeper face and advertised as a lower trajectory club for higher swing speeds, but I did not find that to be the case at all with the 3W.  I think for me it is optics in that I prefer a smaller head size. I wanted to buy used, but could not find one in the flex or shaft I wanted. At the time, the only ones I saw were stiff. OTOH, my current driver is stiff (Fujikura Fuel 60S). The 3W is a Matrix Red Tie Regular flex (HD 6q3.1) I prolly should check with @WUTiger on shaft selection.

oh, impressive 5W shot you had there, and uphill to boot...

Edited November 10, 2017 by Hacker James

[Lihu]

26 minutes ago, Hacker James said:

ya know.....I should have remembered that. A while back, I did that very thing and shot an 81 on a 69.1/122 using my 3W for the majority of tee shots. That coupled with the questionable advice here, that unless you can use your driver, you will never improve.  Another thing this reminds me of, is that for a time I wanted to trade my Exotics XCG7 Driver for an XCG7 BETA (same as my 3W). The Beta is a little smaller, deeper face and advertised as a lower trajectory club for higher swing speeds, but I did not find that to be the case at all with the 3W.  I think for me it is optics in that I prefer a smaller head size. I wanted to buy used, but could not find one in the flex or shaft I wanted. At the time, the only ones I saw were stiff. OTOH, my current driver is stiff (Fujikura Fuel 60S). The 3W is a Matrix Red Tie Regular flex (HD 6q3.1) I prolly should check with @WUTiger on shaft selection.

oh, impressive 5W shot you had there, and uphill to boot...

Find a driver that matches your 3W characteristics and you'll be able to hit even longer off the tee. Your swing looks pretty good, and I'm not surprised you can score reasonably well.

 

[mcanadiens]

The other day I was intending to lay up 20 yards short of a green-side bunker with the old 5W and slammed the ball into the thing. It hit the back lip, shot up in the air and plopped down in a puddle in the middle up the bunker. 

Not very good for the scorecard but it was awesome.

[Buckeyebowman]

You cannot figure out golf! No matter how we try!

[WUTiger]

7 hours ago, Hacker James said:

The 3W is a Matrix Red Tie Regular flex (HD 6q3.1) I prolly should check with @WUTiger on shaft selection.

The Matrix site describes the above RT shaft as "mid-launch, mid-spin" for player seeking no spin or launch corrections. Designed to give "maximum distance and accuracy for player with a smoother tempo."

The R-flex would weigh about 63 grams once trimmed out.

[Hacker James]

2 minutes ago, WUTiger said:

The Matrix site describes the above RT shaft as "mid-launch, mid-spin" for player seeking no spin or launch corrections. Designed to give "maximum distance and accuracy for player with a smoother tempo."

The R-flex would weigh about 63 grams once trimmed out.

so are you saying that the RT Regular is heavier than the Fuji Stiff?  I will have to look closer at the ads to see what shaft they are putting on the Beta Driver then base my flex selection accordingly. Ideally, I would want the Driver shaft the same as my 3W to retain overall characteristics.

 

[WUTiger]

1 hour ago, Hacker James said:

...so are you saying that the RT Regular is heavier than the Fuji Stiff?  I will have to look closer at the ads to see what shaft they are putting on the Beta Driver then base my flex selection accordingly. Ideally, I would want the Driver shaft the same as my 3W to retain overall characteristics. ...

I would say do a side-by-side and see which combo works best.  A heavier regular might come close to crossing over with a slightly lighter stiff. I don't know how a lighter Fuji stiff compares to a Red Tie regular as far as flex goes. Remember, there's no industry standard for what is R or S. Compare the numbers on a launch monitor.

In my own bag, the shafts in my long club are slightly heavier than normal for an average golfer. My FlyZ 4H is really unusual. It has a 75-gram senior flex shaft. It just drops into the slot better than my former Adams V4 / 4H with an R-flex  60-gram shaft.

When in doubt, go with what works.

Edited November 11, 2017 by WUTiger

[Hacker James]

10 hours ago, WUTiger said:

I would say do a side-by-side and see which combo works best.  A heavier regular might come close to crossing over with a slightly lighter stiff. I don't know how a lighter Fuji stiff compares to a Red Tie regular as far as flex goes. Remember, there's no industry standard for what is R or S. Compare the numbers on a launch monitor.

In my own bag, the shafts in my long club are slightly heavier than normal for an average golfer. My FlyZ 4H is really unusual. It has a 75-gram senior flex shaft. It just drops into the slot better than my former Adams V4 / 4H with an R-flex  60-gram shaft.

When in doubt, go with what works.

Thanks!  It so happens that right after I read your response, I went to Global Golf and noticed they had the XCG7 Beta Driver with the Matrix Red Tie. It is stiff, but so is what I have now and the 3W has that shaft but regular. I think it will work out okay, and the price is right ($60 with tax and shipping). Added benefit is that now I will have an extra shaft adapter and now 3 different shafts and 2 heads. Gettin dangerously close to becoming a club HO.

Edited November 11, 2017 by Hacker James

[Fourputt]

On 11/9/2017 at 6:17 PM, Hacker James said:

Every once in awhile "stuff" happens.  

Playing a round of mediocre golf having not been out on the course in several weeks with more of my share of short drives, missed approaches, and putts not dropping; I happened on this rather long par four, hit my drive about 180, then faced with a fairway wood in to the green. I was in the middle of the fairway, slight uphill, green not visible. Longest club other than driver is my 3 wood. Anyway, I hit that thing solid, and it took off and landed about ten yards in front of the green. (there was some downhill roll involved after going over the rise) I did not measure it, but it was longer than my drive, and much longer than I expected.  I really could not tell  you what happened, nothing unusual to be sure, or at least it felt "normal" (whatever that means).  I have experienced unexpected shots on the 18th like just about everybody else, but this occurred in the middle of the round. Score, not terrible I wrote down an 87.   Oh well....go figure... "stuff happens".

I did a similar thing with my 5W about 10-12 years ago.  On a 520 yard par 5, I was over the green with two 5W shots.  The first was something over 260, and the second from the light rough was slightly longer.  Typically back then I considered my 5W as a 210 yard club.  I did it those 2 consecutive shots, then never again.  I somehow put 2 perfect swings back to back.  The second shot was actually expected to be about 30-40 yards short of the green.  I've hit exceptionally long shots other times, rare and unpredictable, but never on consecutive swings, and never with that 5W (it's no longer even part of my arsenal). 

I've hit a few drives 320+ yards during otherwise quite ordinary rounds (when my normal drives were in the 230-250 range), but until I got old, I always had that potential to crush the occasional driver.  I don't see that as being quite the same surprise as those two 5 wood bombs. 

[shanksalot]

Once in awhile you can get a perfect swing and hit on a club and it goes far beyond the norm for you. Enjoy it and move on because you probably will never have it happen to you again with that club. We all have had it happen and I would guess most of us never had it happen again with the club we used that day. 

[Buckeyebowman]

Exactly. I hit drive 299 this year. I'm 65 with a Driver swing speed of about 95 mph. The carts had GPS and it read 399 at the tee and 100 at my ball, so no way to lie about it. When I hit it my buddies were like, "Whoa dude! You crushed it!" My one buddy hit a decent one and I was 60 yards past him.

Wish I could remember how I did it. I just look at it as a gift from the golf gods.