Sports Knowledge Base - Woods .

Woods are used to hit long shots. If a golf hole is 450 yards from tee to green, most golfers use a wood to hit off the tee. A wood is a hollow-bodied large headed golf club. Use your woods when you are 175 yards or more away from the green.

Most golfers also carry 3 and 5 woods in their bag. A 3 wood has a loft between 15 and 18 degrees, and a 5 wood has a loft between 20 and 22 degrees. The higher the golf club number, the higher the loft.
In addition, the higher the golf club number, the shorter the club. A 3 wood is generally 1/2" shorter than a Driver and so on with each successive club. This is because the shorter the club, the smaller the arc of the swing. The smaller the arc of the swing, the less speed the golf club will have when it strikes the ball and so the less distance the ball will travel. Some manufacturers believe that a 5 wood is short enough and while the 7 and 9 woods provide more forgiveness, longer distance in shots is desirable.

Why aren't woods made of wood? They used to be, but since the 1980's woods have been made of metal. Metal has many advantages over wood, the most important to the beginning golfer being the ability to precisely mould metal to create a golf club that has perimeter weighting and low centre of gravity (LCG). Both of these design technologies result in golf clubs that are much more forgiving than wooden woods.

Perimeter weighting helps create a larger sweet spot, a larger area on the face of the club that will result in a good hit. Low centre of gravity creates mass at the right place. This increases the height that the ball will launch off the club and reducing the likelihood of miss-hits into the ground.

What about 2 and 4 woods? These woods actually exist and were popular 20 or more years ago, but they have fallen out of favour as newer technologies have improved the performance of woods. Today, most golfers prefer 7 and 9 woods in their bag (which can only have fourteen clubs) than a 2 or 4 wood. In fact, there is now a trend to include higher numbered woods and eliminate the traditional low numbered irons in your set of golf clubs.

The 3 wood and 5 wood are commonly referred to as Fairway Woods, because they are most often used during the second shot of play, when you are supposed to be in the fairway of the golf hole (as opposed to in the woods!). All higher lofted woods (7, 9, 11, and so on) are commonly referred to as utility woods.

Metal woods are also made in another sequence of sizes which are about 25 grams heavier in each size.