Advances in technology, new head designs and smarter fitting have made these previously hard-to-hit clubs great choices for weekend golfers and pros like LPGA player Gaby Lopez.
As the longest and lowest-lofted club in your bag that you need to be able to hit off the turf, the fairway wood is the toughest for most golfers to launch effectively. That’s why when we pore over the data from our Hot List testing to find the fairway woods with the best launch numbers, we think there’s an eager audience of struggling golfers looking for help. Launching the ball properly with a long club can help you avoid disasters and hit more greens.
In recent years, manufacturers have looked to inject more efficient power into their fairway woods with not only thinner and hotter faces but with soles that keep the mass low for a centre of gravity that optimises launch. Interestingly, these new face-flexing designs are producing more distance from shallower, lower-profile faces that help average golfers feel more confident about hitting a club without much loft from a tight fairway lie.
That doesn’t mean hitting fairway woods still doesn’t require precision in your execution. One thing we’ve consistently found in recent years is our players tend to hit high-lofted fairway woods (4, 5 and 7-woods) more consistently than traditional 15-degree 3-woods. The lesson there is perhaps it’s worth rethinking what your lowest-lofted fairway wood should be. A loft like 16.5 degrees certainly will be more playable than a traditional 3-wood, especially for shots off the deck.
To identify the best-launching fairway woods, we took launch-monitor data from our Hot List player testing. Every shot hit during the Hot List was tracked by the Rapsodo MLM2 Pro launch monitor. We then analysed the data by normalising each club to each player’s average launch conditions with the fairway woods he or she hit. We focused not only on launch angle but also the numbers for higher apex height as well as the most playable landing angles (steep to hold greens but not so vertical that you weren’t going to get some rollout). The fairway woods that consistently delivered the most above-average numbers per player across our group of 3, 5 and 7-woods within each model earn our highest marks as the best-launching fairway woods.
Here are some numbers you should think about. According to Trackman, the LPGA Tour averages with a 3 and 5-wood – which should be especially helpful to recreational golfers because LPGA players hit more fairway woods than PGA Tour players – include launch angles of 11 to 12.5 degrees and spin rates in the 2,600rpm range for 3-woods and the 4,500rpm range for 5-woods. Another note about the LPGA averages: Both the 3 and 5-wood numbers on Trackman show negative attack angles (about 1-1.5 degrees). In other words, the best fairway-wood players are hitting ever so slightly down on the ball. They’re not trying to sweep or hit up on these low-lofted clubs and neither should you.
Hot list testing
We tracked data on launch, spin and trajectory to evaluate fairwaywoods. Here are the clubs some of our testers liked best.
Wei Mao, 55
14-handicap
Callaway Quantum Max
“It looks like it’s going to be easy to hit, and that’s exactly what happened. It was easy to get good distance, really good launch numbers. I was able to work the ball a little bit but not a ton. It just wanted to go long and straight. Overall, really fun to hit.”
Anand Mudaliar, 43
6-handicap
Mizuno JPX One
“Easy to launch, very forgiving, low spin. I was able to actually move the ball from right to left and left to right with the 3-wood. It worked in every category, from off the tee to off the turf. This one really performs across the board.”
Peter Lee, 58
8-handicap
TaylorMade Qi4D
“I love the way this club looks at address – very clean, very cool and modern-looking. And, man, it’s got some power. The sound and the feel are exactly what I’m looking for, not too loud but not too muted either.”
Alejandra Bedoya, 27
6-handicap
Titleist GT1
“It was very easy to repeat the same type of shot over and over again. Easy to keep a controlled ball flight. Easy to get it high in the air without losing it. Almost felt like the ball was trying to keep climbing up instead of just dropping. It’s consistent, very powerful and easy to hit.”
Photographs by Getty Images/Brian Spurlock
