Your Questions Answered
Are hybrids still the best option to replace your long irons?
Question: It seems like hybrid use on tour is down. Should I be re-thinking the ones I have?
Answer: This is like a question about bitcoin investing on tour. Or the prevalence of recreational speed boating on tour. Or cashmere sweater use on tour. The key in all of these is “on tour.” 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 on the professional tours in terms of golf clubs and balls is at best simply a data point, not a call to action. Assuming you are not a Korn Ferry Tour player, the proper answer for you should have a lot more to do with you than what’s happening on tour.
So first things first, let’s get at the first part of your question. Yes, hybrid use on the PGA Tour has tailed off from its heady days of 15 years ago or so. When the Hot List started back in 2004, the hybrid was in its heyday as the savior 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 easily 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 of a draw bias than would make them comfortable. (For most elite players, any amount of draw bias will make them uncomfortable. Of course, any amount of draw bias for the average golfer is needed more than a fashion makeover.) Second, there aren’t that many holes these days where players are hitting hybrids into greens. According to PGA Tour ShotLink data, the number of approaches longer than 200 yards is 11 percent less than it was 15 years ago.
Third, and this is mostly what might be useful for average golfers to think about, tour players are opting for other options beyond hybrids. Those include utility irons and high-lofted fairway woods. These specialty irons feature a wider 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 shape 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, believes fairway woods are a better option for many players. “People wrongly think that hybrids have a lower center of gravity than fairway woods,” he said. “Fairway woods will be easier to hit it higher for most players.”
We agree, but all of that said, we still think hybrids should be part of your consideration set for ditching the long and even middle irons in your bag. 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 national fitting chain and 100 Best Clubfitter Club Champion to study just how much better a 6-hybrid was than a 6-iron for an average golfer. The tests showed that for high handicappers a 6-hybrid was an average of 18 yards better in carry distance than a 6-iron.)
As 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 are going to have a lower and deeper CG. 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 more shallow 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 mishits, you might want to look a little more at hybrids. Some players also find the smaller head 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 with.”
Hybrids can be easier to hit because they are shorter shafted than fairway woods, and because their centers 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. We think utility irons are largely for those who are looking for a specific ball flight (lower) and rarely miss face center. But most golfers still would get more benefits from the much wider sole and lower center of gravity of a fairway wood.
We think a good middle ground is to look for fairway woods as replacements for the longer portion of your bag. Maybe consider customizing 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 to 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. Of course, as always, resist the urge to make the call on your own. Get a good fitter to analyze what’s in your bag and how a club change might change your game.
