7 WOOD v HYBRID v DRIVING IRON – Don’t buy any of them before watching this

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Are you trying to work out what’s best for you? 7 Wood v Hybrid v Driving Iron? You’re not alone. In 2010, over 80% of PGA Tour players carried a hybrid. That’s now around 20% with half opting for a driving iron and many now carrying a 7 wood and even a 9 wood for their high, trajectory and soft landing. Does that always mean it’s the right choice for amateur golfers or is the hybrid still a good option?

Ford Flanagan from Glencorse Golf Club is a 9 handicap and came in to test the options. Full disclosure – we thought he’d end up with a 7 wood but it didn’t turn out that way.

CLUBS FEATURED IN THIS VIDEO
Srixon ZXiU 4 Utility / Driving Iron
Titleist GT2 4 Hybrid
Titleist GT2 7 Wood
Taylormade Qi35 7 Wood
Ping G440 Max 7 Wood

Ford’s Clubs
Ping G430 7 Wood
TaylorMade SIM2 Max 5 Wood
Titleist TSi2 5 Hybrid

SGGT SHAFT PURING
All our shafts are “pured” using an SST Puring Machine that identifies the best alignment for the shaft for maximum efficiency.

SGGT is also known for its unique, detailed 4, 6, 8, PW iron fittings at our flagship Edinburgh and Chesterfield studios. Where as many fitters use only 7 iron to fit an iron set, SGGT goes through the bag to find you the best fit for your game.

Recently, a customer said he thought SGGT offered the “World’s Best Iron Fitting” at our flagship Edinburgh and Chesterfield studios. He challenged us to find anywhere else in the world that offered all this in iron fittings:

• Fitting across set 4, 6, 8 irons & PW. Not just a 7 iron.
• Completely brand independent so you’re guaranteed unbiased advice
• Largest heads/shaft selection in Europe. We have the biggest matrix.
• Premium balls – ProV1s etc instead of range balls.
• Your choice of grip – We’ll put your preferred grip on the clubs you’re testing.
• An opportunity to test off mats & grass, indoor & outdoor during the fitting. It’s the only way to see the true ball flight and test turf interaction. Plus you still get the benefits of our Trackman launch monitors.

We haven’t found anywhere else yet. So, is SGGT the “World’s Best Iron Fitting?”. We’d be genuinely curious to know so please do get in touch.

Please Note: There are regional service variations offered at our Netherlands studios. Please contact them for details.
If you’d like to experience an iron fitting on this level then contact our Edinburgh or Chesterfield studios – or book online at www.sggt.co.uk

SGGT has a number of great fitting features including
The biggest matrix selection of club heads, shafts and grips to ensure you get exactly what you want
Trackman launch monitors
Open bays so you can see the real ball flight
SST Shaft Puring to get the most out of your shaft
S3 shaft profiling
We’ll fit your preferred grip during fitting sessions
Iron fitting with 4/6/8/PW instead of just one club
Outdoor wedge testing including in bunker
Premium balls
Matt and grass testing

DRIVERS & WOODS – FULL RANGE including
Titleist GT1, GT2, GT3, GT4 Series drivers GT280 Mini Driver
TaylorMade Qi35 Qi10 Core, Max, Maxlite and LS
Ping G440, G430 MAX, LST SFT and 10K
Cobra DS Adapt, Darkspeed
Callaway Elyte, Ai-Smoke, Paradym, Max D, Triple Diamond
Srixon ZXi Driver
Mini-Driver, Fairways and Hybrids

IRONS AND WEDGES – FULL RANGE including
Titleist T100, T150, T200, T350, 620, 722
Taylormade P7CB, P790, P770, Qi irons
Ping G430, G730, i230, i530, i59, Blueprint T
Callaway Elyte, Standard, X, HL (high launch) and Max Fast. Paradym Ai Smoke, Apex
Srixon ZXi7, ZXi5, ZXi4 Z-Forged II, ZX4 MkII, ZX5 MkII, Zx7 MkII
Mizuno JPX925 Hot Metal, JPX 923, Pro 245, 243, 241

SGGT custom fitting service creates golf clubs that are personalised to you and your swing only. Using our own proprietary fitting system we can combine heads and shafts from all the leading brands to create the ultimate combination in one of our two tour fitting studios. The Lyle Studio covers the woods and the long game and the Hogan Studio fits irons and wedges. All orders are built in our own in-house workshop. You can also trade in your old golf clubs for new ones. For more information choose the fitting you require below and book online.

Whether you’re a high, mid or low handicap golfer SGGT can help. We offer a tour level fitting experience for all levels of golfer from an average golfer looking for improved performance through to the club champion or elite professional looking for precision in their equipment.

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[Music] hello and welcome back to SGGT today Aaron and myself we’re joined by a very special guest Ford Flanigan ford’s here to look at some longer clubs and I suppose the big question is is Seven Wood the answer there’s so much of it on tour just now it’s does it do what the amateur golfer needs it to do so it won’t be the same for every golfer but Ford’s going to hit some shots for us and see if it works out well for him ford has been a a watcher of the channel and a customer for years and we thought who better than Ford ford tell us about your golf and where you play and the need for these clubs yeah so um I play at Glen Course Golf Club Scot it’s just uh outside Penny Cookook um it’s quite a interesting little course it’s very short but it’s got challenging uh holes on it so we’ve got eight par threes on the course but seven of them off the metal TE’s are over 200 yards so we’re looking at I’m looking at for my ability and my swing speed I need to be in the hybrids and fairwoods in these holes in a regular basis so at the moment I’m carrying five hybrid seven wood fivewood three-wood and I’m using these clubs every single round without fail um so there’s also some holes on Glen course as well that require shortest par4s that I’m not taking driver on so I need to have a 3-wood up there so accuracy is really key for me to get the get round that course uh and play well on it so I think it’s probably not necessarily a fitting we’re looking at going through it’s going to be let’s have a look at different clubs and what they do and I think what we want to show is that we can almost make three clubs do the same job but they’re going to be on a different trajectory and it very much depends what you need that to look like so if you play an island green type thing you’re going to need to fly it on and get it to stop if you play somewhere that you can run it in you maybe get away with a longer iron so it’s just working out one what works and two what trajectory they’re going to work on and also need the clubs to go um obviously set distances but I I need to be able to work them as well so I’m not hitting clubs 100% all the time sometimes I need to steer it in depends on what the wind direction is and what the the course is playing like at the moment for example course is really firm and hard so if I’m hitting hybrid on one of the holes that I need it to land softly and run on i’m not hammering it into the hole I actually might be even playing it short so I need it to do be quite flexible in that respect so if you took like the first hole as an example what are you going to hit flat cam off the tea today so off the back te I’d be hitting seven wood okay um sevenwood’s giving me that really really high trajectory and as you say um hopefully stopping a bit quicker even if that’s short of the green I can rely on that sort of bounce forward and get that in there yeah join a few years seven and we’ll just try and take some numbers and see what it looks like to begin with so how far is this first hole for what are we working with so off the back te it’s about 220 yards off the back tea uh you’ve got a burn that runs maybe 30 40 yards short of the the front and the green okay so you’ve got a burn to carry you’ve got a good area front the green to run it onto the green or bounce it and run it onto the green or if you want to fly all the way if the greens are a bit softer you need that sort of trajectory to try and land it on that one yeah good boy come on in let’s see it in action okay that’ll do that’s a nice start yeah that was okay didn’t feel like I caught all of that but maybe skinny but we’re not going to beat ourselves up over it though are we it’s going the right direction no so that shot on the first would be okay even if I didn’t catch it all especially when it’s firm like this I think that would do okay yeah that’s a better one that’s the kind of trajectory I’m looking for on that hole okay so this is a club that we done last year for is that right yeah absolutely seven was a ping G430 yeah good um yeah we bit left but sounded pretty solid good one more that’s a big left so if seven wood isn’t quite enough for you what club would you play after that fivewood let’s see some of them in action let’s just get an idea what that does as well it tends to be we’re playing off a mat just now but I’d be teeing this up obviously yeah do you want a we tee just to try no I’m fine just now I’ll have a go with this and see what happens it’s a preferred lie hear left it sounded really solid yeah bit left as well would that be your miss on the golf course it is at the moment i tend to do it when I’m maybe a little bit tense okay um yeah i think it’s when I get I get too fast on it i’m not turning properly on it um if I’m playing well it’s not you know it doesn’t come into my game if you know what I mean that was a better one you’re certainly steady enough that’s for sure yeah yeah solid good really good and then what’s the other side of the sevenwood Ford um I’ve got the five hybrid let’s see that in action okay so you play five hybrid and five iron yes so five iron is my uh longest iron so I got the five hybrid so the five iron I’m talking total distance here is maybe like a 170 okay uh the five hybrid goes anything from sort of 170 to 190 depending on how play in if you have to yeah i see you play relatively traditionally lofted irons as well you’ve not got jacked up lofts and No no you quite like that quite enjoy playing something traditional yeah always have done uh I’ve got the Mazuno 921 Tours so I think the pitching wedge 46 yeah 79 34 was it yeah done but left again carry 170 ran to 190 you told us where it was going to go yeah good and in terms of distance I’m guessing this isn’t too different to the sevenwood it’s just a different way of getting there i think um the five hybrid for me is the versatility of it as well so I’m hitting out of fairways I’m hitting out semi- rough it’s a real go-to club i don’t think I could actually get around Glen course without this so I’m not hitting five iron that far um unless I’m absolutely flushing it and you know if I’m in the semi- rough or whatever this is just you know perfect for nudge it forward yeah absolutely and at the front of the greens forward mhm can you run it into most of the holes that you’re going to be playing these clubs is there bunkers on the front thing or can you run it up the green if you have to yeah absolutely i mean that’s the the challenge at Glen Course is I mean obviously you want to hit every green but you don’t really want to be left and right so if you pin high left and right you can be in a lot of trouble uh very narrow greens you’ve got bunkers pitching over bunkers not an awful lot of green to play with so the idea really is to try and be shortish and run it on kind of always not always but trying to play a club less especially in weather like this um and running it up there if I get pin high if I go the the yardage for it and miss it then I’m in trouble so yeah a lot wedges coming out absolutely yeah okay so looking at what you do for just quick analyze those three clubs for you there what you find in terms of the numbers the fivewood’s great 194 you’ve almost got two clubs that are really similar i know you said that at the start almost off camera that seven would maybe just doesn’t quite go far enough in terms of what you would want it to do y so you almost need to play about with that a little bit like you’ve got the five hybrid carries just over 170 as does the sevenwood but then you’ve got the fivewood at 194 we could almost do we’re trying to find our 10 yards at the seven wood yeah that would fill that gap a little bit better for you yeah so last year Scott I took a four hybrid out and put the seven wood in okay um there’s the trajectory in the seven is fantastic but I find that I’m having to force it to get the length that I want out of it so we need to try and keep the trajectory but steer 10 yards yeah maybe there’s a challenge Aaron that’s the balance isn’t it i’m going to try some different bits i’m going to try just so we can see what it does we’ll try a driving iron at that kind of loft okay and then we’ll work our way up we’ll try a hybrid and we’ll try a 7 and see if we can get one that’s just a little bit more efficient for you yeah right yeah great right what we got to start with so we’re going to go stricten ZXi U so four iron but it’s a 23° utility iron basically um KBS TGI 70 just as a starting point jumping off point just to see what this kind of club would do for you sure thanks this is not a club I would normally go for but we’ll see how it goes there is that that it’s almost No we know it’s not going to be your thing let’s just have a couple of goes with it and see what it does i think we still get so many golfers that are determined they’re going to play a longer iron as opposed to see the benefits of playing fairwood or hybrid absolutely it’ll be interesting just to see the difference but so many golfers are stuck in that they’ve always had a four iron what’s interesting is I would like to be able to play one you know the thought of taking it out of the bag is really really good but um when I’ve tried in the past it’s I’ve struggled with them that was a better strike but it’s obviously gone a bit left so you spoke about your five iron total distance going 170 the four iron goes 180 total distance so it does do a job in terms of what you would want it to do in terms of that yardage it’s you’re quite shallow into the back of the ball so is there any benefit of playing longer iron yeah the guy that’s really steep can get away with playing irons in rough because he could hits down in the back of the ball and he gets ball first whereas because you’re that little bit shallow longer iron as soon as you’ve got something that isn’t a great lie yeah is always going to be difficult give us two more okay but I don’t I don’t dislike it yeah i mean that last shot was actually quite nice but it’s are we needing to make it hard for the sake of making it hard yeah yeah i could feel that going left before I even hit it sounded solid yeah best strike of the bunch but yeah just a fraction left isn’t it y so carry number not necessarily as high as you would need it to be but the total number is doing okay it’s not a bad outcome for what you want it to do it feels great does it yeah feels really good i caught that heavy and that’s it when you don’t quite catch it a little bit ground before ball and you don’t get away with it yeah it’s just not forgiving enough for me I don’t think right Aaron what’s next so we have a Titus GT2 H four hybrid 21° so it’s going to be the same as your your seven would um little bit stronger than this iron and we’ll see what this does in comparison so shaft wise were similar to Ford’s hybrid he’s got just now yographic for the complimentary one you’ve got an 85 regular in here so designed to do the similar thing yeah okay cool it’s got a very familiar look about it as well so yeah more confidence inspiring yeah absolutely yep sounded good yeah that was a nice shaft good yeah that was good carry 178.8 that’s near the 180 that we’re looking for aaron this got a shorter shaft in it than you would normally play in a four hybrid or This is a standard length one just now there’s a standard length one just now we we’ll compare it to yours and see if yours is a touch longer yeah okay how does it feel lengthwise no it feels a bit shorter it feels like my five hybrid right okay which is quite nice and quite familiar you know that was a bad swing any difference between this and the driving iron that when you had a bad swing with this it still kind of went forward and advance still sensible isn’t it yeah push that button in your trolley and walk after it without any hassle absolutely that was solid yeah that was good it’s the versatility this gives me as well yeah off the fairways and semi- rough something like that yep love it when a plan comes together adam tight that’s the shape I like to see with the hybrid as well it’s starting right and coming in a little bit so yeah that that was again that was like a Sunday best job but carry at 184 it was more that number we’re looking for this club to do as well y that was a we bit right quite a lot right actually we maybe went too far good swing though just Yeah a hair again 180 on the carry so the numbers closer to what we want the number to be most definitely and the trajectory is good as well it’s not too flat yeah it doesn’t look flat that’s for sure that was nice really nice yeah that looks good i think we’ve done this with you before isn’t it with the lie angle we changed to straighten out ball flight we’ve done that with the irons it’s amazing that people don’t realize that you can do it with wood as well that you can play about with how the club’s going to sit and change trajectory and take some of that curvature out for you we did it with irons and you did it in my wedges as well i got fitted last year for the wedges and that made a big difference as well you can actually see the strike point on the the club getting better so again I caught that low but you just get away with it that’s that good bad one isn’t it yeah you’re you’re never going to ask for that back no right forward i’m going to conserve some energy aaron do you want to build us up a sevenwood yeah and we’ll try and find see if we can get a sevenwood that goes the trajectory we like but just with a little bit more oomph okay right ford thank you so similar concept to the hybrid same loft same setting y shaft’s not dissimilar in terms of what it is just a different club cg location is different designed to do slightly different things let’s just see what the difference is okay behind the ball does one feel more confidence inspiring than the other so for a fairway fairway wood the the head looks quite small on this yeah i don’t know if it’s a smaller heel to toe as well okay it’s It looks smaller than I would be used to seeing a fairway wood looking it’s almost somewhere between a hybrid and a fairway wood yeah but it’s not you know it doesn’t scare me looking at it okay um the number was better instantly 189 it’s almost 20 yards further than your old seven would it’s almost too far we’re going to need to try and take a bit off of it yeah well that’ll be our challenge you just swing your swing okay it’s a great trajectory on that tried to come back didn’t it so it’s noticeable the trajectory between the two golf clubs changing yep um that one there 183 carry in terms of peak height let me just have a we dig back at that hybrid there Ford that there is a great golf shot peaking at 83 ft the hybrid that we were hitting previously where are we come on technology four what around where are we four four iron it is is it under four iron yeah take that 44T off so other than the one that kind of skittle on the ground y you’re averaging 68 ft with that as opposed to 86 with a 7wood so trajectories a fair bit higher to get to the same kind of number and I think that’s when it comes down to well a few more but it’s almost pick your poison what do you want it to look like personally for me I want to see it coming out flat on the basis that I hit high and wafty at the best of times so into the wind the higher it goes I just feel like it’s in reverse yeah that can be a challenge the wind with that so I’d far rather especially that you can run it in playing them a little bit flatter and I know what I’m going to get yep good what feels easier to work with um the hybrid does it yeah absolutely do you prefer the trajectory on the hybrid as well i think so with the four hybrid it’s just that little bit flatter um but in saying that though Scott the trajectory on this is great if I get the distance as well so the seven I’ve got just now I think I struggle sometimes just to get it as far as I want it to go um and when I when that’s in my head I start trying to force it and that’s when mistakes and errors to creep into you start trying to get a little bit more but if if I had a seven wood that was a bit maybe hotter off the face or whatever it might be um that I wasn’t having to force it but getting that trajectory and distance I’d be quite happy with it yeah that would be all right wouldn’t it see the 27 was for it actually just comparing the two of them there i don’t know if there’s a bad one with yours it’s flinging the numbers off ever so slightly benefit the doubt when you look at the 27 side by side y from a numbers standpoint in terms of what it gets the new one versus the old one you’re 173 versus 183 so you’re getting another 10 yards out of it in terms of where it’s going the new one’s launching a degree and a half lower with 8 m 8 mph more ball speed so it’s just coming out flatter and hotter so effectively it ends up higher purely because it’s moving faster it’s just you hit the nail on the head yours is just a little bit high and a little bit softer yeah yeah yep bad one yeah yeah I just got a little bit matty on that one but still got away with it can we have that back just for a minute and do you want to try a sim just with a bigger footprint i know for the start there that that was almost like a small headed one it’s can we put a bigger headed on and just see what it does more than anything so we’re going into Tailormade Qi35 Max so slightly bigger footprint will be interesting just to see how this compares to the tight list um so the Titus head is actually quite low launching as far as seven woods go yep so this might give you higher trajectory again and almost be closer to your own seven that you have just now forward and the footprint is completely different isn’t it you look at that and it’s um I can see the loft in it and that stretch with the back is is quite prominent as well yeah yeah it’s nice very different feeling off the face as well nice so trajectory was back up the way strike was good though so ball speed was definitely better than that off your ping y carry 181 peak height 86 ft so like from a number standpoint like that’s a dream and it goes back to that bit at the very very start it’s what do you want it to look like because Trackman says the numbers on hybrid were great also says the numbers on seven week were great they both carry the same distance it’s what do you want pick your poison ultimately yeah exactly i suppose to some degree it would be nice to have both um depending on the conditions on the course yeah um cuz it’s really nice at the moment getting that trajectory it’s It’s landing a bit softer it’s not running on quite as much so you feel like you’ve got a little bit more control with it um one of the reasons I took the four hybrid out was I start struggling with it a little bit in terms of just getting strike on it so that was one reason but the other reason was it was coming out really really flat and it was you know running off i couldn’t control the thing so that’s why I went to sevenwood does this look better aesthetically as far as a wood would go yeah for me for my eyes want wood to look like a wood compared to the tightless definitely i mean I think the ping’s a good looking club as well that that’s nice to look down on the tightless for some reason looks really small to me yeah okay it’s a couple to the left but again that’s just more of a sort of swing and so downside to this head it’s a little bit more upright than the others and because it’s a fixed head we don’t have the ability to flatten it yeah yeah yeah do the ping head is that some similar to this size it’s a little bit smaller i think it’s probably between the two okay okay four can we have that back what we’re going to do we’re going to give you a 7wood that’s a slightly bigger footprint y but the lie angle is a little bit flatter just so we can save you from some of that curve that you get right Aaron what we got ping G440 Max 21° again just a little bit flatter again bigger footprint than the tight list might not quite be as big as the Tailor Made but it’ be a good kind of blend between the two absolutely yeah nice yeah again it’s very similar to the the G430 I think as well it looks quite familiar and again you can see the loft on it as well which is you know you know it’s going to go up there you can trust it not out the middle but again just you get away with it it’s done okay for what it was you definitely seem more consistent with hybrid I think the good shots with fairywood are good but the bad shot then tends to be worse whereas the hybrid it just felt like pretty steady same thing and that’s um that’s what’s creeping in with the sevenwood as well on the course so the good shots are fantastic um the bad ones are really bad right okay yeah so yeah it it tends to be in dismiss to the left that I’m getting as well as a pattern i think that’s a nice strike yeah best of the bunch there just wants to work left on you isn’t it yeah a little bit cuz I feel like the hybrid we kind of tamed it i think with the hybrid I can start it more right and bring it in i struggle to do that with any of my woods nice strike that was a good one yeah so I think for having tried the three different options Yep and I think all three really good options whether it be drive iron hybrids or seven wood I think from a consistency standpoint the seven would cop stood out the four utility iron was great and it went further than the five iron very onedimensional you could hit it off TE’s if you told me you played loads of par threes at that 175 yards it maybe had a bit mileage yeah but I think when making it hard for the sake of making it hard whereas I think the Wii hybrid gave you that perfect blend of you could play out the rough you can play it from the tea and whatnot absolutely um I think and I was getting nice trajectory on it as well Scott as well ah no definitely so I think what we’ll do is we’ll get you back let’s have a look at We know we needed to carry 180 we’ve got the numbers now from your fivewood and your five hybrid we know you need to split the difference y so I think it’s let’s have a a second video let’s get a look at what you do and we’ll fit you for a four hybrid we’ll find out what works the best and we’ll try all the different options find a hybrid that does what we needed to do for you great yeah all right with that yeah thanks very much right so while seven woods have become popular on tour even some ninewoods looking back for Ford there it was was 7wood great yes was there a club that was better also yes so it’s are I think a lot of golfers are going with the trend that higher lofted fairywoods are the answer and I think a lot of cases it definitely is but for Ford I think it looks like hybrid’s a better option for you absolutely um so what we’ll do is tune back into the channel there’ll be another video coming where we fit Ford for that 180 yard club that he’s looking for for Glen Course Golf Club and thank you again for watching if you want to book in for your own fitting please head to the website at sgt.co.uk and for more great videos please like and subscribe to the channel thanks [Music]