Why a 9-wood is a great option for the average golfer

Equipment
Qi10 fairway

There is a lot to be said for a lofted fairway wood. It used to be that the 5-wood was the most lofted wood in the bag, then more 7-woods found their way into the bag and now on Tour there is the occasional 9-wood.

Tommy Fleetwood is one of those players who likes this club and he had one in the bag at The Masters to plug the gap between his 5-wood and 4-iron. The Englishman did have a 3-iron in the bag but that made way for the 9-wood to help add more height to his approaches from distance.

“You get a lot of courses where there’s thick rough, firm greens and firm fairways and there’s always a balance between having something that you can drive down the fairway but also something that you can hit into greens or out of the rough,” Fleetwood said.

“I went higher up in loft in woods to find something that could do that. I don’t like hitting hybrids and 7-wood numbers are too close to what my 5-wood produces so we found the 9-wood to fill that gap between my 5-wood at 250-yards and my 4-iron at 225-yards.”

When Fleetwood first made the move he used the TaylorMade Stealth; now he has the more recent Qi10 from the same company which he signed with at the end of 2020.

“I think it’s a good club and I think it’s versatile. I would always switch between that and a 3-iron. They’re very, very different clubs in terms of how they work.

“It’s like hitting a wedge onto the green; it goes up and drops straight down. It’s not a club you’re going to drill and get more out of it, it’s just going to go up in the air and come straight down.”

Fleetwood’s caddy Ian Finnis explained that it had been a brilliant addition to the bag.

“That 9-wood is incredible. It’s like a 9-iron or a wedge how high it flies and soft it lands. He hit it probably 10 or more times and stuck it (close to the pin) every time.”

And while we might not have the distance and accuracy of Fleetwood there are plenty of reasons to consider a fairway wood which is away from the norm.

The benefits of a 9-wood

– The club has the same loft as a 4-iron but it will play nothing like what might have once been your longest iron.

– Due to the larger clubhead and a low centre of gravity it is highly forgiving on mishits so, if you do struggle for consistency with your long iron play, you will find this a very welcome club to swing. And it will work with moderate or slower swing speeds as the loft and that centre of gravity helps create an ideal trajectory without needing high clubhead speed.

– The rounded clubhead design allows it to glide through thicker grass far more easily than irons, making it an excellent option for hitting out of the rough or other tricky lies. So when you next face a shot from the rough 200 yards out you might be able to give yourself a putt for birdie.

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