The fairway wood is a polarising piece of equipment in the golf bag for many players. It is a club that is required on many occasions in the round but one that many golfers fear due to consistently poor strikes. In the video below, PGA Professional Jack Backhouse explains how to strike your fairway woods perfect every time.
Why are the fairway woods so important?
Most mid-handsappers will find themselves in a situation to hit a fairway wood 4-8 times per round. This could be on long par 4s or a second shot up a par 5, but what happens with this shot is a huge determining factor in your overall score for the day.
With the club shaft being so long and the head having such little loft, unfortunately, a poor shot with a fairway wood shot is basically like a penalty shot – the ball is often topped or hit heavy, travelling less than 100 yards. This often leaves the next shot still a long iron, hybrid or fairway wood away, meaning we have to go through the same rollercoaster all over again!
A good strike with a fairway wood will leave you less than a full shot with a wedge into the green, so it essential to get this part of your game right.
Common Fairway Wood Faults
Although we all have different swings and different faults, there are only really 2 major faults I see players do when hitting a fairway wood poorly. They are:
- trying to lift the ball up in the air
- hanging back
What you as a golfer must understand is that these clubs are packed with technology to help the ball get up in the air, with a low centre of gravity and perimeter weighting, so you don’t need to help it up at all. We actually want to hit this club more like a hybrid and long iron more than we do like a driver, hitting down 1 to 2 inches ahead of the ball.
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Technique Adjustments For Better Strikes
We can make some changes to our techniques that will help up hit the golf ball better with our fairway woods. these are:
- play the ball position 1 club head in from the front heel
- shift our hips closer to the target and our weight further forwards
- shallow our swing plane
Doing these 3 things will help your wood hit the ground in the right place, and advance the ball down the hole further. First and foremost we must strike the ball well for there to be any point in using these clubs, and doing these 3 changes will help you.
Drills To Improve
There are 2 drills that will really help you put the ball on the green more with your fairway woods. these are:
- Bowler drill – this is where you set your trail foot way back and stand on your lead leg and hit shots, feeling your weight and low point forwards. This also helps you hit the ball from the inside.
- Connect arms drill – connect your triceps to your ribcage and make some swings where they do not become disconnected. This will help you shallow out your swing plane, help you hit a draw shot and hit the ball further
Drills are an essential part of learning and skill development, make sure whenever you make changes or try to improve you have some drills to work on!
If you want to watch some more of Jack’s swing tips instruction videos, you can get to his YouTube Technique Tips playlist by clicking here. Please check out our other instruction articles if you liked this how to video on striking your fairway woods perfect every time!
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