Your equipment questions answered
Q: It seems like hybrid use on tour is down. Should I be rethinking the ones I have?
If you’re inspired to do something because you see it happening on tour, we would highly encourage you to dig a little deeper because what is or isn’t working for the pros is at best a data point, not a call to action. Assuming you are not shooting in the 60s, the best answer for you should have a lot more to do with your game than with what you’re seeing on tour.
First things first, let’s get to the start of your question. Yes, hybrid use on the LPGA and PGA tours has tailed off from its heady days 15 years ago. When our Hot List started back in 2004, the hybrid was in its heyday as the saviour for all modern golfers struggling to launch long irons properly. In other words, all modern golfers – major champions, grandmas and you. If you look at the top 20 players on the PGA Tour, only three still carry a hybrid. Fifteen years ago, it was three or four times as many, with a typical week seeing more than 100 hybrids in play.
What happened? Well, some of it is reality and some of it is perception. First, elite players often found hybrids to have a little more draw bias than makes them comfortable. (For most elite players, any amount of draw bias makes them uncomfortable. Of course, draw bias for the average golfer is needed more than a fashion makeover.)
Second, there aren’t that many holes these days where tour-level players are hitting hybrids into greens. According to PGA Tour ShotLink data, the number of approaches longer than 180 metres is 11 percent less than it was 15 years ago.
Third, and this is mostly what might be useful for average golfers, tour pros are opting for other choices beyond hybrids. Those include utility irons and high-lofted fairway woods. Today’s utility irons feature a wide sole and a hollow construction with a fast-flexing face to provide ball speed, higher launch and the ability to flight shots to fit certain conditions. The high-lofted fairway woods, including 5, 7 and even 9-woods, provide a more compact yet forgiving head that is easy to launch from a variety of lies.
Chris Marchini, Golf Galaxy’s director of golf experience and the lead fitting consultant for the Golf Digest Hot List, thinks fairway woods are a better option for many players. “People wrongly think that hybrids have a lower centre of gravity than fairway woods,” he says. “Fairway woods will be easier to hit it higher for most players.”
We agree, but we still think hybrids should be part of your consideration when ditching your long and even middle irons. We think starting at your 5-iron, your clubs should be more forgiving than those from your 6-iron through 9-iron. That can be a more forgiving style of iron (like in a combo set), hybrids, utility irons and fairway woods. The ideal is a mix of two or three of those options as you work your way from your driver to your most playable longer iron, and that “longest” iron might even be a 7-iron. Golf Digest asked fitting chain Club Champion to study how much better a 6-hybrid is than a 6-iron for an average golfer. Tests showed that for high handicappers a 6-hybrid was on average 16.5 metres longer in carry distance than a 6-iron.
Michael Vrska, Callaway’s director of custom fitting and player performance, recently commented on X, “There certainly are a lot more 7-woods going out on tours, but what’s the real benefit of that compared to a hybrid? The fairway woods generally have a lower and deeper centre of gravity. That’s going to help you launch the ball higher and with a little more spin, and for sure that’s going to give you a steeper descent angle. There’s also the swing issue of ‘steep’ versus ‘sweep’. In general, people who sweep the ball and swing shallower through impact do better with fairway woods.
“But you also might want to look at face contact. If you struggle with high and low, heel and toe mis-hits, you might want to look a little more towards hybrids. Some players also find the smaller clubhead and smaller sole a little more versatile. Even in thicker rough, the hybrid might be able to cut through some places that fairway woods might struggle.”
Hybrids can be easier to hit because they are shorter-shafted than fairway woods, and because their centres of gravity are closer to the face, they may feel more like an iron in your swing. We also think they are significantly more forgiving than utility irons. Utility irons are best for those who are looking for a specific ball flight (lower) and rarely miss the centre of the face, but most golfers would still get more benefits from the wider sole and lower centre of gravity of a fairway wood.
A good middle ground is to look for fairway woods as replacements for the longer portion of your bag. Consider customising them with slightly shorter shaft lengths, too. That will add some control to that extra power. In other words, go with fewer irons in your set, and then use the savings to help fund some fairway wood purchases to fill the gaps. Yes, we get it, fairway woods are more expensive than irons and hybrids. That might just be because they’re better – in more ways that matter.
As always, resist the urge to make the call on your own. Get a good fitter to analyse what’s in your bag and how a club change might change your game.
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Q: Do shafts wear out or can you keep putting old shafts into new clubheads?
Although we’re tempted to reach out and ask if you mean woods with adjustable cogs or irons that are glued in, the answers we received from our experts cover the gamut, so you’ll have all the information you need.
To start, a graphite driver shaft with an adjustable cog is a fairly simple equation. As long as you’re using a compatible adapter and just using the wrench to secure it, you really don’t have to worry about that shaft wearing out.
“Graphite shafts last a long time and can be used in subsequent heads,” say Paul Wood and John Oldenburg of Ping. “Minor flaws within a graphite laminate may eventually lead to failure after repeated use, but, as a whole, shafts do not become worn out.”
Avery Reed, former PGA Tour rep for Mitsubishi shafts and now owner/master fitter for Fairhope Golf Works, agrees: “If the shaft stays in the same tip, it should be able to go from one head to another head for years,” he says. “Zach Johnson played the same Diamana Blueboard forever. It got to the point where the paint wore off from taking it in and out of the bag, but it never changed the playability of the shaft.”
Now, let’s move on to glued-in graphite shafts. That’s a different story.
“The shafts won’t wear out, but if there is grinding on the tip to take off epoxy, too much material being taken off can cause the shaft to become brittle,” Reed says.
In short, it is never recommended to pull a graphite shaft out of a hosel or hosel adapter and insert it into a new one. The heat required to pull the shaft degrades the epoxy in the graphite. If done properly, you might be able to get away with it, but it’s definitely a high-risk proposition.
Iron shafts don’t have adapters, but because they are typically made of steel, it’s a different deal than graphite.
“True Temper did a test many years ago that said a steel shaft would last two-and-a-half lifetimes,” says Woody Lashen, co-owner and master fitter at Pete’s Golf in Mineola, New York. “Can they bend, yes – especially steel shafts with soft tips – but they don’t wear out.”
Although iron shafts are durable, it’s important to make sure they don’t bend over time. This is a concern for higher-swing-speed players, especially if they have a steep angle of attack and take deep divots.
The takeaway: shafts generally don’t wear out, but beware the pitfalls.
Answers by our equipment editors Mike Stachura and E. Michael Johnson.
