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If you’re thinking about buying a fairway wood right now, there’s a very real chance you’re going to choose the wrong one. Even if you’re choosing from one of the most iconic fairway wood brands to ever hit the game. So, what are these costly mistakes I see golfers make year after year? And more importantly, have Tailor Made been making such good fairway woods for so long that actually one of the oldest fairway woods in this lineup could actually be better for you. Guys, how you doing? Welcome back to a brand new video. Simon here, SAS Golf Academy, where I do all my in-person teaching as well as my online tuition and secondhand club fitting. And today’s video, I want to focus on tailormade fairway woods, arguably some of the best fairway woods to have come out in the last 10 years. That being said, I want to split this video down the middle. The first half are the dos and don’ts of how to find the perfect fairway wood for your game. And the second part, the tech, the R&D, because this tailor made M2 came out in 2016. And I’ve got more updated versions of that said fairway wood when we’re talking about twist face, carbon everywhere, lower CG, higher MOI, these buzzwords we see all the time. But does that actually correlate to anything more when we start hitting a few throughout this video? So, let’s just jump right into it. And maybe a tick in the box for the M2 here for some of you watching this video. And it’s the sense that this isn’t a tailor-made problem as such, but just the industry. Fairway woods have definitely got bigger over the last decade or so. And I’m going to talk about the pros and cons of that and why manufacturers are doing this. But I chose this Stealth Plus, the one middleman of these fivewoods. And again, we’ll talk about lofts in a second because this is actually a smaller head design than the original or let’s say the standard Stealth. But if I put that, let’s say smaller head design. I think it’s around 175cc. This M2 on the left here is about 165cc. And back in the day, 2016, this was the forgiving model. This was your beginner fairway wood, your high launching, forgiving design. And to be honest, it’s probably a reason why actually so many people around this era or let’s say amateurs were using ping fairway woods because they were wider, they were larger, they were higher spinning, higher launching. But in the same breath, and even to this day, Tailor Made is the most popular fairway wood used on tour. Big doesn’t necessarily mean control, especially when you’re trying to hit these things off tight lies. To give you some kind of understanding, this on my right here is the Qi10 Max. It’s the largest fairway wood head that Tailor Made’s ever brought out. And this now would be very high handicapper, high forgiving fairway wood that be fitted compared to, let’s say, 10 years ago when this was what would have been used in the club fitting. and they go, “Oh, high handicapper, need forgiveness. Use this.” So, let’s move on to loft. I have a fivewood here. And there’s a reason I have a fivewood and why so many golfers nowadays want fivewoods. And it’s cuz the balls change a lot. The balls nowadays are so much more lower spinning, harder in terms of compression. Whereas back in the day, let’s go let’s say 30 years ago for example, the ball was so soft. Amateur golfers, 18 handicapped golfers would have three irons in the bag, two irons in the bag because the ball was so spinny and so soft, you could get away with having such a low lofted club in your bag. That is not the case anymore. You need a lot of club head speed to be able to wield a 3-wood. 3-woods nowadays are going very far with very fast players. And it’s also why so many pros are also opting to have higher lofted fairway woods because they’re looking these clubs to hit into long par fives. The majority of golf course design now is to catch out those high-speed players with bunkers at 290 300. Therefore, fivewoods with the modernday ball are almost producing old school 3-wood numbers. And we’re going to talk about ball speed and efficiency with this what could be considered a classic now with little technology compared to my others. But realistically, how much difference has it made? If you’ve just started the game and you haven’t even got a fairway wood, just get a fivewood to save yourself some time and heartache for the very minimal difference in distance. And sometimes people hit fivewoods further than threewoods. It’s going to be so much more consistent for you. the whole job of a shaft and let’s just say roll up regular flex and stiff flex and X stiff all into one basket because there are different variations and kick points and weights and so on and so forth. But the softer flex in general adds loft. So it bends this way and again because I’m using a relatively low lofted club when you put it against a pitching wedge for example I do want help to well get the ball up in the air. It’s also why I’ve just recommended fivewoods to a lot of you. So, a softer flexing shaft is going to help the ball into the air even on bad shots. And unlike the driver where it’s teed up and a lot of us can get a good strike being a bit more, let’s say, neutral, a bit more on the inside. that same path, that same swing from, let’s say, here potentially means we’re going to start hitting the ground heavy. It’s not always the case, but as I said, I fit some people into regular flex fivewoods or threewoods and stiff flex drivers. Why? Because when they’re, let’s say, coming neutral, more on the inside, their bad shot tends to be left. A stiffer flex shaft not only will let’s say keep the launch down to give them more distance and keep the spin down, actually keeps the club face open. The stiffer a shaft, the less torque typically, which means if it’s got less torque, that face is going to stay open more on the way down and not close. But when that golfer goes to hit this ball off the deck, guess what they’re going to do? They’re not going to hang behind it. They’re going to get steeper. And if they get steeper, they’re potentially coming more out to in. It’s not a bad thing. And to be honest, it’s why I teach a lot of people to fade a fairway wood. Try and slide it left to right rather than get stuck on the inside. But it’s why I feel sometimes a regular flex fairway wood suits this particular shot now because actually now I’m coming slightly out to in. I want the face close to the target slightly. I don’t want it open to the target. Not only that, I want to make sure the good shot and bad shot gets up in the air. Again, as a testament of how low spinning balls are generally nowadays, this is a fivewood regular flex in my hand. And that is very low spin. That’s almost gone 270. And I appreciate technique does play a part. But my point is, if you’re a fast golfer and for whatever reason you grab a hold of a fairway wood, you put the same stiff flex shaft or X stiff shaft, let’s say, in your hands and it just leaks low right, don’t be afraid to put a weaker flex of shaft in your fairway wood. As a rule of thumb, if it’s going high and left, get a stiffer flex shaft. If it’s going low and right, get a weaker flex in shaft. And don’t just feel like you have to get the same kind of shaft and profile for every single club in your bag because we don’t swing them all the same as much as we try to. However, the last factor is how a club sits and looks. I like smaller fairway woods like the old school ones. This one sits so tightly to the ground. And I feel like even out the rough, I’m going to be able to glide this club through like a knife through butter. And the good thing is as manufacturers obviously have slightly increased the club head size so they can claim more forgiveness and also get higher launch which for most golfers is probably a bonus. They also bring out more head designs as I explained. So you can get lower spinning ones like the Stealth Plus or the more forgiving ones like the standard Stealth or the Qi35 Max. Right, let’s talk technology especially when we get into the comparison. Now I’m going to swap the shafts over so it’s all similar. Sadly, this M2 is fixed. So, I have a standard regular flex in here. But the reason I want to talk about tech is that Tailor May bought Adams. I’ll leave the article here on the right hand side. And there’s a lot of similarities between old school Adams fairway woods and hybrids and the more modernday tailor made woods that we see here. My point is, if you’re just starting or you want the perfect entry point fairway wood, Adams is your go-to. They feel and sound similar to, let’s say, the more modernday tailor made woods. Not quite like the ones over there that are quite expensive, but around this kind of era of fairway woods. And I’ll tell you the difference, but for £30, £40, Adam Fairwaywoods and hybrids, you can’t really go wrong because Tailor Made have built a brand on that kind of technology. So, we have the Tailor Made M2 here. It goes for around £80, probably in poor condition, £100 in good condition, and it looks great. It looks classy. As I say, for the more modernday game now, I would say this heads designed for more of the better golfer. That approach into a long par five, for example, that shot shaping fade that they want to try and curve into the flag, touch out the heel. So, I would put this down to the more mid- handicap golfer, low handicap golfer. One thing I would say, tailorade woods do sound great. Ping ones sound pingy, tiny almost. The amount of carbon and mechanics that they put into the head, they just sound solid. And that was nearly missed the face. Yet, the forgiveness wasn’t too bad, I must say. That was well struck. Very good indeed. So now we’re jumping up five, six years in technology. We’ve got twist face now. We’ve got speed pocket, even though the M2 kind of had a speed pocket. We’ve got the Stealth Plus. So it’s the lower spinning version of the Stealth series. And getting closer, I should say, in head size to the M2. There’s a reason I chose that. So we see this kind of steady progression in head size. And does it make a difference? Do I see anything? Now, we’ll talk about prices as well because we’ve got more availability. This is a newer club. There’s more of them out there um in circulation. Obviously, more expensive, but again, a decent M2 is going to be around £100. This Stealth, for example, in good condition, uh £120, £140, 150, fivewoods obviously are going to be more expensive. That is a lovely sounding fairway wood. But again, a factor that I have to do with these videos and again we’re just talking about tailor made here. But five years after release of any club driver irons fairway woods is kind of this perfect point of loads of stock still out there in good condition that isn’t falling apart, but they’ve lost all their retail price. I don’t feel like I can hit any better than that one to be perfectly honest. I might as well just stop there with the stealth a touch out the hill. But luckily the loft that I have here and the amount of spin that this regular flex is giving me kind of helps it climb into the air. And I’m not surprised Tailor Made is one of the most popular brands when it comes to fairway woods as that that was my Sunday best. the red dot at the top there that almost hit the huzzle off this stealth plus and there’s all of about 10 yards between them. Now I feel warmed up. I feel like I should just hit one more with the M2. That is about right. I mean I’ve absolutely ripped that bit that even harder than the last two. It’s one of the reasons I always say human testing is somewhat flawed is that there’s so many variances in this game. Club path plays a part, angular attack plays a part in my spin. So many different variables. However, that being said, I feel like the Stealth looks the best at address for me. I like the way it sits on the ground. And unlike the Stealth Driver series where everyone was kind of off put with a bright red face, this from the top is actually one of the most stunning tailor-made fairway woods out there. Again, there’s something about all black clubs. And there’s definitely an argument to say the M2 is also one of the most best looking fairway woods to have ever come out. But just notice I had to get the low spin head of this fairway wood to resemble the shape that I actually like, which was just your typical old school forgiving fairway wood back in the day. 185cc. And again, it’s interesting now because now we’ve got a weight at the front of the face, whereas the Stealth Plus had a smaller CC but a weight at the back. And it’s this con yako effect. Does any of this stuff actually make any difference whatsoever? I do think this thing looks sleek. It does look good, but in a practical sense on a sunny day, feel like this color scheme just merges a tiny bit too much just into what I’m hitting off of. And again, just like the other two, feels great. Sounds phenomenal. Bob Rosella always says, “If you can’t visualize a shot with a certain club, then don’t hit that club.” And it’s the only downside I can see from this particular club in my hand today. Because don’t get it wrong, if I had the fivewood core model or the LS version, then I’d basically have a newer version of what I have in my hand here and I’d hit that soft cut and I’d go, “Oh, what a magnificent golf club I have.” But my point is loft, head design, shaft is such a crucial part in this game to finding the most out of your ability. not necessarily always technology. And even though Tailor Made have made some of the best fairway woods and hybrids over the last decade or so, we can’t ignore the raw fact of ballistics and just overall confidence that a club gives you. And it’s why I feel I hit this the best today because I could visualize that straight cut with this better than the other two by a mile. But the point of today’s video is what works for me, i.e. that Stealth Plus potentially wouldn’t work for someone else. I’m not talking tech. I’m talking head design. I’m talking loft. I’m talking shaft. But I’m also talking about the nuances in this game because I had a different shaft in that M2 fairway wood. I had the low spin model in the Stealth and had the bigger head of the Qi35 that I wasn’t even that confident with. However, if I had taken, let’s say, all of the color coding out and we just merged these into one particular shot, can we honestly say any of us with a blind testing would be able to tell the blindest bit of difference between all three of those clubs? And to prove somewhat of a point of technology not really making all that much difference and just overall club design. Let’s hit one with the Qi 10 Max with again a regular flex shaft. It’s fixed so I can’t put it. And the other two 19° big head. It is going to spin more. It is going to launch higher. It is not going to go as far. But is it forgiving? Is it confident building for let’s say that beginner golfer that likes the feeling of a bus being behind them in their down swing? And if high launch forgiveness is the priority of your new fairway word, get something that’s big. Guys, if you got any questions, seasolfacademy.com. Catch your eyes.