Fairway woods and hybrids may lack the cachet of drivers and irons, but don’t sleep on these clubs. Some newbies for 2012 provide nearly as much pop as their big brothers, while others are built more for control or maneuverability. Your first order of business: Decide whether you’d benefit from max distance, forgiveness, workability or some combination thereof.
To make sense of this club maze, we enlisted 40 amateur golfers to rate and review every model within a club category on the course and driving range. Hybrid categories are “Better-Player” (evaluated by testers with +1 to 10 handicaps) and “Game-Improvement” (14 to 22 handicaps). Fairway wood categories are “Better-Player” (6 to 16 handicaps) and “Game-Improvement” (10 to 19 handicaps). We tested 17 fairway woods and 15 hybrids during a two-week stay at World Golf Village in St. Augustine, Fla. Our research partner, Hot Stix Golf, custom fit the testers and recommended sticks based on data gathered using the TrackMan launch monitor. Achieving proper launch, spin and ball speed is critical to optimizing performance in fairway woods and hybrids. You, too, should work with a fitter who can determine your ideal specs. We've teamed up with GolfTEC and Golfsmith to offer you three custom-fitting options.
| Game-Improvement Fairway Woods | Better-Player Fairway Woods |
| Adams Speedline Fast 12 | Callaway RAZR Fit |
| Callaway RAZR X Black | Cleveland Mashie |
| Cleveland CG Black | Cobra AMP |
| Cobra Baffler T_Rail | Nike VR Pro Limited Edition |
| Nike VR_S | Ping i20 |
| Ping G20 | TaylorMade R11S |
| TaylorMade RocketBallz | Titleist 910F |
| Tour Edge Exotics XCG5 | Tour Edge Exotics CB4 Tour |
| Wilson FYbrid RS | |
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