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Fairway woods and draw bias

SuperStroke
Which Tree?

Which Tree?

Thirsty
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suburbia, WA
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I was browsing around the local sporting good store during my lunch break today and was surprised to see how many fairway woods have such a severe draw bias or closed face. Am I crazy or is it pretty common for fairway woods to have such an extreme bias?

I have been looking around on a few different manufacturer websites to find the exact degree of closure but have been unsuccessful.

Can such a bias negatively affect a golfer? I understand that the purpose of this is to help tame the slice, but what if you don't have a slice? Could it cause you to hook or just result in an offline shot? I suppose this pertains to Drivers too though they don't appear to have as much of a bias as the woods.

Any info would be greatly appreciated. I have searched the forum and the rest of the net but haven't really happened upon a solid answer. Thanks Hackers!
 
If you don't have a slice, then these biases can cause a closed face at impact for one. A lot of fairway woods have the bias because a lot of guys slice it with the fairways I would guess.
 
I think Hybrids are very similar. I have been hooking mine like crazy since I started addressing some swing flaws. They are in timeout for now
 
Which Tree? said:
I was browsing around the local sporting good store during my lunch break today and was surprised to see how many fairway woods have such a severe draw bias or closed face. Am I crazy or is it pretty common for fairway woods to have such an extreme bias?

I have been looking around on a few different manufacturer websites to find the exact degree of closure but have been unsuccessful.

Can such a bias negatively affect a golfer? I understand that the purpose of this is to help tame the slice, but what if you don't have a slice? Could it cause you to hook or just result in an offline shot? I suppose this pertains to Drivers too though they don't appear to have as much of a bias as the woods.

Any info would be greatly appreciated. I have searched the forum and the rest of the net but haven't really happened upon a solid answer. Thanks Hackers!
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This has been the trend for some time now. The slice is the basic shot of millions of players and the OEM's have been on the bandwagon of doing things to help eliminate this swing flaw, and draw bias clubs are built for this purpose.

If your not a slicer, than go with neutral bias clubs.
 
HoosierGolfer said:
If your not a slicer, than go with neutral bias clubs.
Click to expand...

Finding those is the problem. It seems you can either have super game improvement anti-slice clubs or you can have tour calibre clubs but the selection in between is almost non-existent. And god forbid you don't slice and also don't hit it high since most of the neutral stuff is also designed for a "lower, tour-level ball flight advanced players prefer". Thankfully there is more and more adjustable face technology coming to market for woods and hybrids. Still harder to find middle ground irons.
 
Penglynns said:
Finding those is the problem. It seems you can either have super game improvement anti-slice clubs or you can have tour calibre clubs but the selection in between is almost non-existent. And god forbid you don't slice and also don't hit it high since most of the neutral stuff is also designed for a "lower, tour-level ball flight advanced players prefer". Thankfully there is more and more adjustable face technology coming to market for woods and hybrids. Still harder to find middle ground irons.
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Most all of the major OEM's now make irons in three different configurations, or at the very least two, to fit high, mid and low index players. I think it is very easy today to find clubs that fit any style, more so than years ago.

In woods and drivers, it is fairly easy to go with a neutral club and shaft to fit any desired ball flight. I think the proper shaft is very important.
 
yea I agree that a ton of fairway woods have the draw bias built in. I don't play fairway woods but if I did it would have to be one of the adjustable models like Taylormade or Titileist. At least with the adjustable feature you can open up the club to fit your swing.
 
Draw bias increases effective loft, if it is a draw bias 15 degree 3W when you are setup square it becomes a more lofted club if you setup open with it, no different than opening the face on a wedge. If you are closing the face on a neutral or fade bias club then you are reducing the loft. The same rules apply really to any club in the bag, if you want higher ball flight and no draw bias then buy neutral and open the face or even buy a draw bias and just open it. The draw weighting will impact the ball flight some still but you have control of the loft and trajectory with your setup.
 
I am struggling with this EXACT issue. My miss is a hard draw to a hook, so I have been having a very frustrating year with the longer clubs. I have a R9 4 wood (adjustable) that seems to work pretty well, but I have been through bunches of hybrids. I'm back to looking at the 910H line after ditching a Nike Sumo2 SQ and Mashie M3. I agree, the face angle at address is VERY hard to find on most OEM spec websites.
 
I have had to ditch all hybrids and my 3 wood in exchange for the new R11 fairway woods. They have changed my game 100% and all for the good. Not only do I not hook the ball with these clubs, I actually can hit a cut or fade on command. I never thought the day would come but it has and I can't be happier.
 
I found a few that looked sooo closed at address that I would find it distracting (that and the end result for me would be a shot 80 yards offline).
 
Yeah I have noticed the same thing since I started looking for a new hybrid. For OEMs like Callaway, you have to go with the tour version to get away from the closed face. It kinda sucks.
 
hartattack52 said:
Yeah I have noticed the same thing since I started looking for a new hybrid. For OEMs like Callaway, you have to go with the tour version to get away from the closed face. It kinda sucks.
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Haha, yes it does suck. The only "game improvement" one I found that wasn't extremely closed was the Nike SQ Machspeed. I am going to have to put that one on my list to hit though I am not sure I am liking the square head.
 
I play an R11 5wd neutral and at first I was consistently hitting a draw wit great control once I got used to it. I actually joined up with a group and the guy I was riding with saw me hit a beautiful draw that landed just short of the green and asked if that was normal for me. When i said yes he mentioned how well I played it since it is the only club in the bag I draw. After some practice I can hit it straight but the draw seems to work well for me.

Swing away and hopefully you can find something that fits you. Best of Luck!
 
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