UNEXPECTED RESULTS?! 9-Wood vs 5-Hybrid vs 4-Iron

This video features an in-depth comparison of a 9-wood vs 5-hybrid vs 4-iron. For 2nd Swing master club fitters, this dilemma is a common one for many golfers at the top of the iron set. High-lofted fairway woods and hybrids, like a 9-wood or a 5-hybrid, continue to gain popularity because of the higher launch and spin rates they generate. But what are the exact differences between them?

0:00 Intro
2:25 Testing – 5-Hybrid
9:57 Testing – 4-Iron
17:00 Testing – 9-Wood
21:00 Data & Conclusions

In this video, 2nd Swing’s Drew Mahowald is joined by Emma Carpenter for a head-to-head comparison featuring a 9-wood, 5-hybrid, and 4-iron. How does the performance of a 9-wood differ from a 5-hybrid and 4-iron? Should you consider playing a 9-wood?

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Hey golfers, Drew Mahold here with Second Swing Golf at Second Swing Minnetonka. Joined by Emma Carpenter for a fascinating comparison today. It’s a 9wood, a five hybrid, and a 4iron. And so I know my we explained this to Emma off camera and she kind of gave me that same look of like what are we even doing here? So um if you were to just guess Emma about what’s going to happen today, what do you think we’re going to see here? We got a 9inewood, five hybrid, and four iron. They’re all about 24 degrees of loft here. I have no idea. A 9wood, a five five hybrid. Yes. And a and a four iron. Yes. And they’re all this exact same loft. Yeah. Well, about that. The five hybrid technically is 24 and a half. The other two are 24. So, close enough based on what we can do with the hazel adjustments. So, I mean, I would guess that the hybrid’s going to go the highest, land the softest, most spin. Okay. Um, the wood is going to be the uh uh I don’t know. Yeah, you’re trying to figure it out. I actually don’t know. So, here’s what I’ll say. High lofted woods are becoming popular because they launch higher and they land with more stopping power than other options, even with loft factored into that. So that’s why, you know, I think the ninewood’s going to be the highest launching and spinning out of all these for you. Really? Well, definitely. I would believe it would have more stopping power than like a long iron, right? Long irons are are hard to go high and soft. Yeah. Yeah. That’s usually the the what we’re seeing with golfers is they’re taking out long irons because they don’t get high enough or they don’t spin enough and replacing them with highed woods or highofted hybrids. Both are options. So that’s what we’re going to find out today is just we’re going to put them to the test. I know you recently just put a five hybrid in your bag, so we can see a little bit of how that compares maybe to a 9wood. 9woods are a little outside the box nowadays, but I think they’re starting to gain some momentum with this high lofted woods surge, if you will. So I’m going to let you decide what club to hit first today. Let’s start with What do you think? I’m thinking I’m going to start with either the What? Why don’t we start with the hybrid? Okay, let’s start with the hybrid. Perfect. Let’s start with the hybrid. We’ll start with the hybrid. Go from there. Okay, cool. Okay. So, starting with five hybrid, I’ve got the Denali red shaft in that with I believe it’s a uh 70 g stiff. Um, we’ll do that with actually 70 gram stiff in each of these. So, we’ll be keeping it as close as we can here to, you know, removing those variables, if you will. But yeah, I I know you have a five hybrid in the bag now, so I’m sure you’re you know, it’s not the exact club, but I’m sure that look is kind of familiar to you then. Yeah. Yeah, I definitely I would say like too, just over the course of my golf career, I’ve hit a lot more hybrids than I have woods. Truth like fairway woods, truthfully. So that for me is going to be the like wild card of this test is like if you get the nine wood in your hand, you’re like this is just so different and you’re not used to it how that goes. But that’s a really good first shot I think. Right. Yeah. Yeah, that was it was okay. It was okay. I know it turned maybe a little more left than you want. Yeah. But not not not bad. That was a So your five hybrid and again the loft is probably a little bit different. I I had to move adjust this one just to match things up to be 24 and a half. Okay. Uh but is there a like a number that you play your five hybrid at in your bag? it. My five hybrid is gonna go like between one uh my five hybrid is going to go like I would say right around like 192 to 196. Okay. Um depending on if I’m like in a tournament or something got a little extra juice. Okay. That was struck pretty well it looks like. Yeah. Yeah, that was that was hit better than the last one. Okay. So, okay. I got to ask you something that’s so funny is I really do think I know a lot about equipment, a lot about numbers. Like truth, some golfers, and it completely varies. Like some golfers really want to know everything about their equipment, everything about the numbers. Some golfers don’t really even want to know a lot of that stuff. Like I had teammates in college who didn’t like to pay attention to Trackman numbers at all. I eat it up. I think it’s so interesting. Something I never really dove into because like I seriously all through college, I always kept a four iron in the bag. I always had four iron and then three-wood driver and like and then some people would come up with a ton of head covers. I never did. But I never really knew exactly why I did that. I was just I liked the four iron. I liked hitting it off a tea. Sure. I thought I felt cool. I don’t think I mean I don’t think that’s a wrong answer. I think if if I think ultimately what any of our fitters would say is if all 14 of your clubs have a specific purpose, right? If you’re using whether it’s hitting it for a certain distance or for the forearm, for example, if you hit it off the tea a lot, like that matters and that’s valuable, right? Um I I I think what you’re maybe getting at is like are were you kind of going against the grain by having a 4 iron in the bag? Definitely as a girl having a 4 iron in the bag was not was not you probably didn’t play against a lot of people in college or other players in college that had four irons. No. Um I think it you know a you swung your do swing faster than most of them. So I think the forearm is probably more applicable in that way. Yep. But I also think as we’ll see the for a lot of players that don’t have your swing speed or maybe some that even do have your swing speed and just deliver the club differently, getting a hybrid even or a 4iron high in the air to where it actually has that use for them. Yeah. Is a challenge. And so then the other option that presents is a hybrid like this to replace a 4iron or it’s a sevenwood or a ninewood. Right. But it’s so funny too because that’s what I thought. I was always like and and that’s what what I was told and there it’s true because of my speed and whatnot and I was able to still get enough spin on the four to where it made sense to keep it in the bag. I like to even hit it off the tea as a utility club. But then I remember reading Michelle Wi has multiple hybrids in the bag, multiple woods in the bag. Yeah. And then I was like, “Wait a second. Michelle Lee, she hits the ball some of the longest of of all women right now.” And she’s got a bunch of clubs in the bag, I guess. So my biggest question for you, Drew, is what is the biggest difference between a wood and a hybrid? So the main difference a the shaft is going to be longer in the ninewood and then so that will create more swing speed. So, you will probably swing the ninewood noticeably faster just because the shaft is longer. Um, and then also the center of gravity on the fairywood is so much lower and farther back because of the club design. So, because of that, there’ll be more weight kind of underneath the ball at impact. Okay? So, it it should launch higher because of the way the club head is constructed versus the hybrid. And the same thing goes for hybrid versus four iron. You know, with a hybrid, there’s more weight low and behind the ball because it’s kind of a bigger club head and there’s not as much behind it with an iron. So, these things launch even lower than a hybrid. And that’s the trend that we’ve seen. Now, again, we’ll see if that shows up with your swing, but for the most part, that’s kind of what we see from golfer to golfer. Interesting. Oh, that’s a good swing there, too. Yeah, that one that one was pretty good. So, what do we got? Is that four up there? Maybe even five. That is five. Okay, so five swings. This is the five hybrid. This again, this is a G440. It is adjusted to 24 and a half degrees because the other two clubs are 24 degrees. So, and again, and for you, I mean, based on just having played a five hybrid, I I imagine this is going to be the most comfortable one for you. Yeah. Um, but this is I mean, you mentioned this would be the club to kind of be, you know, a total distance of about 195, I think you said. 192, 196. Yeah. And end up totaling average of 197. Um, I think there was, you know, if we take out kind of this swing here, suddenly that dispersion gets really, really good. So really your your four good swings were very consistent. Your carry number was in that 185ish range for all four of them. It’s funny I gave you a number that was kind of right between the carry and total cuz I’m carry carrying at 186 total. I mean that’s the thing too. I think it’s it’s important to know with Trackman the roll out, you know, or the difference between carry and total. Yeah. Is a set thing. But if you were to play golf, you know, in Minnesota when it rains a lot during the summers and it’s a lot softer, the total will probably be a lot less than 199. But then you go down and play in Texas or Arizona, that probably goes up another 5 10 yards. So that’s very dependent on course conditions and stuff. But these are the n the baseline numbers for the five hybrids. So Okay. Um yeah. So my prediction is that like the 9inewood for example will go higher with some more spin and some more launch and then the four iron will go a lot lower and lot the carry distance would go down as well. So those are I’ll I’ll leave it to you to pick the club that we hit next year. Interesting. Let’s go let’s go down to the four iron. We’ll finish with the ninewood. I like that. This will be good. So, something that I’m interested to know because I always thought of hybrids because like you said with now people adding five wood, seven woods, nine woods. Yeah. Um I I didn’t try anything like that besides the 3-wood until way later on in my career. So then I always compared irons to hybrids and then the fairway woods were just meant for getting something as far as possible, right? That was the way that I always saw it. Yeah. And that’s I don’t think that’s wrong. That’s that’s exactly what I was kind of raised on as well. Right. Right. Like as a junior golfer. Yeah. It’s I think it’s just a recent trend. I think golfers are discovering that. Well, and fitters, too, are discovering that these woods, you know, there’s we have 11 woods back in our fitting bay as well. There’s a lot of seven woods. Um there’s a heaven wood that Callaway makes. And the differences that people have seen just they go so much higher. And if you’re trying to go into say a longer par three, yeah, it’s you’re seeing that those woods are a lot better at landing the ball at a certain spot versus maybe a four iron that if can be very flat trajectory and run over the green, right? Interesting. But so so then if the if the wood goes higher and lands softer than a hybrid, why would a hybrid even be in the discussion? Why would Well, a couple things. It depends on like the golfer because sometimes it can go too high. There are players where the sevenwood or the ninewood can go too high or they they already spin the ball a lot and so they don’t need more spin. But I also think it’s it’s a look thing too. Um a lot of players just prefer don’t like the look of a big high fairywood that has a ton of loft on it. And I think to me that’s very fair. And yeah, it can be it can be a kind of a weird, you know, confidence reducer if you will at impact. Yeah. or at the swing. So, okay. So, this is a 4 iron. It’s a bit of a different looking 4iron. It’s kind of a utility iron from paying the eye crossover. Yeah, that was like pure, Drew. Yeah, I hit I had an eye crossover in the bag. So, this is okay. Look at that. That’s actually a lot of height and and launch there for that 4 iron. That’s pretty good. So, this is I think the stock loft on this is 22 and a half and I’ve moved it up to 24. Okay. Okay. Oh, see this is the thing about an iron, right? You just have a miss like that. Well, see, and that’s So, yeah. I mean, all of a sudden, you’re down to 69 ft for height and you have what this is the concern here. If you play a firm golf course, you have your carry and your total distance is different by 20 yards. Yeah. I mean, all things considered, that wasn’t like awful awful. It really wasn’t, but H. Yeah, it was definitely not. It could be a lot worse, but yeah, that was hit well, too, wasn’t it? That was pretty good. Maybe a little towy again. Okay. I mean, no, actually really good. Yeah, I think. And that’s a that’s a very forgiving iron, too, where I’ve I played that club and I know what happened. Something about the look. I put it down. I was like, “Oh, I actually really like it.” Yeah, I like it. I I played it for a couple years. That’s a really good club. And that’s one if you hit it I could tell you actually did hit it off the toe cuz that spin went down a little bit. Yeah. Um but for example that club off the tea, that is a fantastic T- ball. Yeah. Oh, I bet. Yeah. Now, if you’re hitting that into a green with that low of spin, it could be tough to stop it. That’s exactly what I ran into on on the golf course. And I would never It’s funny like I use it off the tea a lot on the golf course. Um because truthfully it’s actually with the dispersion with the iron like I feel like sometimes when you have a bigger head if you really like shut it or something you can lose it. I feel like I never really lost this really far left or right when I not this one but back when I played a four iron. Yeah sure. Um uh so so that’s why I liked using it off the tea a lot. the distance would definitely um the distance would definitely hurt if I didn’t catch it good as opposed to with a hybrid or a wood. But um yeah, a little less forgiving, but and but I also I I couldn’t hit it into greens quite as much. But I would usually only hitting it into greens if it was like a par five or something. So a little more ball speed on that one. Yeah, that’s that’s a good golf shot right there. That’s pretty ideal. So, I think and again, I think we have maybe one more shot left here if I remember right. Yeah, we got one more. But I think your average distance is actually higher with this. I think so. I think you’re hitting it further. Were you expecting or it’s or it’s really really close. That was hit pretty good. Maybe the face a little bit open. Yeah, that’s okay. Okay, so this is okay. So this is pretty good. So we got some numbers and we’ve got a dispersion as well. This is the four iron and five hybrid. And you can see now granted I did the best four or five with the hybrid. So I’m going to do that with the iron here. And I’m going to remove this one just to be fair. Okay. Um but nonetheless, we see the hybrid actually become, you know, the the dispersion is a little larger than the hybrid, right? Yeah. Which is kind of what I said. that I didn’t feel with. Yeah, this makes sense though. Now, also big thing to look at. Look at the difference in spin. Yeah, 4 iron is much lower spinning like way and you get it hits it you hit a little bit lower. Uh let’s see here. Launch angle, oddly enough, actually hit it launched the four iron higher, but because it was lower spinning, it uh ended up flying a little bit with a lower flight overall. Distance-wise, total distance, it’s actually farther, right? which honestly doesn’t doesn’t surprise me quite as much because it was the same thing when I had that. I feel like once you get into longer and longer irons, if you catch it really hot, you can get a couple extra yards. Yeah, it can absolutely crumble out there. Yeah. So, especially when it’s that low spinning. So, I’m weirdly not surprised to see that I could get the 4iron out there further in the total distance just for that spin. Uh, you know what I’m also fascinated by is how you actually swung the 4 iron so much faster. Um, because to I just like the look of it counterbalance shaft that’s a little bit different. So that could be part of it, but it’s the same overall weight 70 g and a stiff flex. So I mean it feels way lighter. So it could be the counterbalance maybe uh design that’s a ping kind of proprietary shaft. So that could be something playing into that. But I still think we found something significant with the spin difference there. That’s a big deal. Oh yeah. So all right. Now, this is going to be I can’t hit it in the greens. Well, here’s a club. You maybe could. So, that’s that’s a nine wood. The ninewood. And that is set to 24°. So, tell me when you put that one down, what you know, first just comes to mind because you probably haven’t hit a wood with that much loft before. So, I wanted to No. So, see what your thoughts are. Weirdly, this is supposed to be way easier to hit, right? Yeah. Something about it I should say supposed to. I think we’re just seeing that trend happen with a lot of golfers where it’s just it goes higher, stops faster for them. But I want your honest unfiltered thoughts here. Something personal preference like setting this down as opposed to setting an iron down. Something about setting an iron down doesn’t feel like I could lose it left or right as much. This But, you know, I I mean, I haven’t hit a 9inewood before. Yeah. No. Yeah. This is This is going to be fun. And also again, this is a much longer shaft, so from that perspective, it actually is tougher to control. Okay. Okay. Well, let’s see. Oh, that felt good. Already a ton uh more ball speed there. And you hit it 108 feet in the air, just under 5,000 on the spin. That’s pretty good. First higher spin, and it carried like eight yards further, right? Yeah. Okay. Okay. Interesting. This was interesting. Maybe catch it low in the face. Okay. See, but like that’s actually a pretty good miss because what happened on that? The spin actually stayed very very close to what it was with your first shot. It just it did fly lower but it went almost the same distance. That’s actually that’s a fascinating shot there. Well, and the thing is is like when I set it down, I think that’s what makes it feel harder to hit. With the iron, like I feel like I can really go down and get it. When I have a a big head like this, I feel like I need to sweep it. Like when I set it down behind the ball, I feel like I’m going to hit it low on the face a little bit. Fair. Um it’s weird to describe. It’s curious you mentioned that the attack angle thing. Okay. The attack angle hasn’t changed. Yeah, it is pretty consistent. I was wondering if you mentioned that and you like you because you feel like you have to sweep it if that end up changing anything. But so far again that’s only a couple swings. But that was hit pretty good. That was really good. Yeah, look at that. Yeah, that’s really good. 191 carry. And again on a on a softer course it’s probably going to stop at about 191. Wait. Yeah. Whoa. Yeah, that Okay. Wait. No. That’s I mean on again this is is that more Yeah. On a soft course that’s probably going to stop in the low 190s for you. And that’s that’s the highest I’ve spun a club yet, right? Yep. Highest spin, highest carry distance. Wow. Yeah. So far we got a couple yet left yet. This is surprising me. Okay, that was a little towy push. Let’s see what happens. Okay, now that’s again that’s a face angle. Yeah, your face angle. Yeah, I left the face way open. I will say I do like how the distance didn’t drop. I know I didn’t I it didn’t drop in distance. If I would have done that with the with the four iron, I can’t say it would have gone that far. I don’t think it would have. I’m I’m with you on that one. That was another one that was smoked. Maybe a little uh Okay, that’s it. Hung on. It’s totally important. It still gets pretty high for like kind of a pull like that. Yeah. And spin’s really high, too. So, I just want to show before we dive into numbers. Look at the dispersion. You got four shots that are very, very You mean Yeah. Four shots that are pretty much better than anything else you hit today. I’m swinging it pretty fast, too. Yeah. So, numbers. This is fun. This is fun. So, basically what you’re telling me is I should put a 91 in the back. Well, again, it’s it’s not just about this. I like I our fitters say it all the time. If you if you’re not comfortable with it, you don’t like swinging it, something about it, that that’s all fair game. Well, look, if you hit every single fairway, it’s probably better, too. But yeah, well, I don’t know. Is this better? Is this easier to hit out of rough than a a long iron would be? That’s that’s another reason players put woods in on like for US Opens or when they play like Tory Pines. Yeah. You’ll see guys do that as well because it’s easier to chop out of thick rough. Yeah. Like like a four iron out of some thick rough utility iron. Yeah. So, um but like this is this is fun because the spin is I mean we had the gradual progress of spin going up. That carried distance went up a few yards. And if I’m going to if I’m going to do the thing where I pick the best four or five, here we go. We’ll take this one out. We’ll watch that dispersion shrink. And we’ve got the ninewood. I mean, I know you were skeptical when we started this like what are we what am I thinking ninewood for? I feel like that does not normally happen where I’m like I don’t love this, Drew. And then Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it’s the numbers speak for themselves cuz also the most consistent spin. Wait, what’s going on with the launch though? So, that was the, you know, the one swing that you hit low in the face. If I were to, this is this one. Oh, if I were to swap that out, I’ll, you know, do this for example. Best four or five that way. It does make it back into, you know, normal range there a little bit. So, they all kind of launch similarly, which makes sense because the loft, right? Yeah. So, they are all about the same loft. Um, well, yeah, there were 24, 24, and 24 and a half degrees. If I have dynamic loft on here, I can show that. So, the dynamic loft is the loft that you were showing at impact. So, you were showing 17 degrees with the 9wood, 19 with the five hybrid, and 19 with the 4 iron. You’re actually at impact. You were showing less loft with the ninewood, but it was going way higher. It went the highest and that is because the center of gravity is lower and farther back in that club to launch it up in the air. Golf tech spin. Yeah. Okay. Another question. The one that I hit really low on the face with this. What was the spin right here? This is the No, not this one. It is this one right here. It still spawn 4793. It still spun way more than anything with the four iron, of course, and like half of the ones with the hybrid. Yep. And it was it was also right in the same range, too. That’s the best part about that shot is it’s in this group of your four best shots, and you definitely didn’t hit it as well as you wanted to, right? But it the only number that’s really off here, well, is the launch and height. Uh, look at the bottom of the screen here. They all are pretty similar to the rest of these shots. That’s when if somebody’s not standing like right next to you and they don’t like hear the sound or anything and they just kind of see it. Yeah. Stinger. Exactly. Yeah. That’s when you hold the follow through. Club twirl it. 100%. Yeah. So, how would they know? I’m not trying to be like like tell you what to do with your bag and but you’re about to. But I’m just I’m just, you know, opening the idea to you up a ninewood because this is the reason seven woods are becoming popular and now nine woods are kind of following suit. This is exactly it right here. Drew, I told you I got rid of the Lucas bro at Titus. We got rid of the four iron and we put in a five hybrid. And so I got five hybrid and now I have a fivewood. So I have five hybrid, fivewood, threewood. It’s a four iron versus five hybrid comparison that we did today. That’s exactly why he took the four iron out, right? And this five hybrid, these are awesome numbers for a five hybrid, right? I mean, it’s a fantastic dispersion. And if that’s again that’s maybe that’s the yardage that you prefer to have or the look that you prefer, the five hybrid is totally fine to play in your bag. It’s not like I’m telling you to remove it. But I’m just showing you why a lot of golfers like the ninewood as well. So what club would this replace? It would based on this. It would probably replace the five hybrid. You might maybe tweak the ninewood to go maybe higher in loft to match the number. Maybe bring the yardage back a little bit. Yeah. Is what I would do. Uh because you see your your 191 carry. So, I maybe bring it back to match your five hybrid. Yeah, because that would be a little too big of a gap with my sixiron. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Right. So, you could tweak that to um almost make it like a This is going to get really weird, but it could be like a 10wood if you move the loft up. It’s kind of what it would act like. I mean, you can’t argue with the numbers. Yeah. Again, it’s a it’s it’s I think a lot of golfers it’s a radical idea, but this is exactly why it’s happening. Wow. Higher launch, more consistency, more forgiveness. So, no kidding. Yeah, I I think I think I I think you learned something a little bit today about seven woods and nine woods. I learned a lot. This what happens when you step in step into the step into the bays at at second swing. You learn a lot. Yeah. So, thank you, Emma, for this. And golfers, this is a really good example of the differences between, you know, the long irons, the hybrids, and the ninewoods. And Emma showed us exactly why. And maybe there’s a change in Emma’s bag happening soon. So, Emma, thank you for joining. This is a fantastic test here. Yeah, this is awesome. Thanks, Drew.