Recent fairway woods have changed the way people play golf. Today many golfers carry 4 or 5 woods. You can even buy an 11-wood today. Obviously the popularization of fairway woods has changed the way equipment manufacturers offer their products.

Although a few manufacturers are successful with titanium based fairway woods, steel club-heads dominate the market. Once the trends in the market were low profile, and low CG (center of gravity) with smaller club-heads. This approach does not necessarily require light metals such as titanium, and many models are made of stainless steel with steel shaft and graphite shaft options. Adams, with the original Tight Lies Fairway Woods,  made the low profile fairway woods very popular. The Company claimed that the Tight Lies patented “upside–down” design creates a lower center of gravity and a larger Effective Hitting Area (EHA). The new model, the Tight Lies 2 features the "Spin Control Technology".

Club-head Design - While the low profile, low CG, is helpful to increase the chance of hitting the ball airborne, the design causes concerns of sky balls off the tee. Adams now offers the Tight Lies Tour Model to meet the specialized performance requirements of professional and low handicap golfers for example. The adjusted design features deeper club face and higher center of gravity (not "low") to make the model, Tight Lies Tour, more rewarding for highly-skilled players. Many design concepts and approaches that are popular in drivers are used for fairway wood designs (see our "Drivers" section).

Sole Design - Also, it should be noted that the sole design is an important factor to increase the chance of hitting fair or better shots for average golfers. For instance, the sole of Callaway Hawk Eye Titanium Woods is convex instead of concave. The convex sole designs allow pushing the turf down more effectively, or to increase the club's ability to slide on top of the turf. This promotes going after the ball on bad lies. In addition, considerations are given to such design concepts as rounded leading edges to minimize turf drag, and added bounce to propel the club forward on fat shots. Next time, when you consider a new fairway woods, pay your attention to the sole design, too. That makes the difference.

Materials - The majority of fairway wood manufacturers use 17-4 stainless steel ("Materials" for details) often together with heavy materials like tungsten alloys and/or harder metal inserts like maraging steel by Orlimar for the club face. Nonetheless, the theme of new fairway woods is same as that of drivers - lower and deeper CG.

Loft - Today, not only weekend golfers but also many serious golfers carry such clubs as 7-wood or even 9-wood, particularly LPGA layers. Most of the fairway wood makers offer strong 3, 3, 5, and 7 woods, and some offer 9, 11 and 13 woods. The following table shows typical loft angles for different fairway woods.

Shaft - Graphite and steel shafts are equally popular. The priority of fairway woods is not necessarily the added distance, and the average shaft length (43") is roughly 2 inches shorter than those of drivers. Therefore steel shafts could also be very effective. Today's fairway woods, however, may be equipped with longer shafts than those of traditional counterparts. A longer 3-wood can create more distance, making it more versatile. See the "Shaft Technology" for more details.

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