3 tips for hitting your fairways

Depending on how you approach the ball, getting a 3-wood out of the bag either fills you with confidence or dread. Some players find the 3-wood to be a reliable club while others just can’t hit them.

It’s quite commonplace nowadays for players on tour to have 5 and 7 woods in the bag to help them get out of scrapes easily. These clubs can be a real godsend if you need to punch your ball out of the rough, but the 3 wood has a notoriously love-hate reputation.

We want you to be smiling each time you head to the tee knowing you’ll be knocking a drive squarely down the middle, so here’s three tips to help you make amazing shots with a fairway wood.

Off the tee

With fairway woods being half the size of a driver, many golfers struggle to have the confidence to smash one down the fairway — they’re just a lot harder to hit and less forgiving.

One mistake you may be making if you usually hit a driver off the tee is teeing the ball up too high for your 3-wood. While you might initially think this will make the ball easier to hit, you’re actually shifting your weight onto your foot furthest from the tee, causing you to scoop the ball upwards.

To hit a 3-wood you need to tee the ball much lower down. Imagine you’ve found the perfect lie on the fairway for reference, that would be an ideal length. Instead of hitting up on the ball as you would with a driver, you need to approach the ball with a slight descending blow to make a good connection.

When teeing up a shot with the driver, we place the ball near our foot closest to the fairway. To pull off a great drive with a 3-wood, you’ll want the ball towards your front foot but a touch more central in your stance. This will help you flush through the ball rather than scoop it.

Off the deck

Being able to hit a 3-wood off the deck is a skill that you might not need for every single round of golf. But when you’re approaching a par-5 or a long par-4 and you feel like going for the green, it helps to have the right technique in mind.

When you approach the ball on the fairway, position yourself so that the ball is central in your stance. As you swing, keep turning your body through the ball and let the club’s loft get the ball airborne rather than your hands. It can be tempting to shy away from what may feel like an unnatural strike.

As your club makes contact with the ball, be sure to swing through the ball and not take any divots, you’re not hitting down on the ball like with an iron. If you make good contact you’ll be able to sail the ball down the fairway to find your target.

Finding the right club for you

Technology can give you an edge on the golf course, and TaylorMade golf clubs are full of hardworking tech.

The fairway woods in TaylorMade’s latest range, the Stealth 2, are designed to give you incredible turf impact. The V steel sole design on the bottom of the clubheads will help you glide the wood over the ground when you’re hitting the ball off the deck.

The standard Stealth 2 fairway wood has an aesthetically pleasing shape that will inspire confidence when you’re standing over the ball. Thanks to TaylorMade’s Inverted Cone Technology, you’ll get incredible ball speeds on your strikes regardless of where on the face the ball makes contact. You’ll also find this club easy to hit off the deck thanks to the low center of gravity in the clubhead.

This is truly a special bit of kit. When you turn the Stealth 2 Plus fairway wood over, you’ll notice the sliding weight on the sole. This weight can be placed in three distinct settings to give you just the ball flight and performance you’re after. The lightweight carbon crown provides a lot of stability for an impressive feel throughout your swing.

The Stealth 2 HD clubs will be of interest to you if you tend to hit your shots to the right. This club has a built-in draw-bias that will help you keep your shots going straight and on the fairway. The clubhead is slightly oversized to inspire more confidence when you’re standing over the ball. The advanced laser alignment will also give you a more accurate aim when addressing the ball.

However you approach the ball and whatever your ability, we’ll have a fairway wood in the shop to suit your specific needs. We’re open and available to help you out, just get in touch.