Hybrids vs Long Irons: The Club Most Golfers Get Wrong!

Long irons or hybrids—which one belongs in your bag? The answer depends on your swing, your consistency, and the type of shots you need to hit.

In this episode, we put Lexi to the test with both a 4-iron and a 4-hybrid to see the differences in launch, forgiveness, and playability. You’ll see how each club performs on the course, plus the key advantages and drawbacks of both.

Whether you’re a mid-handicap looking for consistency or a better player searching for shot-shaping control, this breakdown will help you decide which option is best for your game.

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Lexi, we are here today. We’re going to talk about some long irons versus hybrids. Which one is better for you? So, you are going to be the guinea pig. You’re going to get to test everything out. Great. So, we’ll talk about some of the benefits of each of them and which ones might be best for your game. Awesome. Let’s get into it. [Music] So, Lexi’s got a what do you have? Four iron. Four iron. Okay, cool. So, we’re going to talk about long irons versus hybrids. So, with a long iron, these might be good for somebody who’s maybe a better player. Uh, they tend to have a little bit lower trajectory, uh, just because of the way that they’re designed. You’re probably going to see, uh, maybe not as much height. So, obviously, the trajectory piece, and then they’re just not going to be as forgiving because there’s just not as much area or surface area on that golf club to really move things around. So, generally speaking, you’re going to see a lot of like better players playing these longer irons in their in their bag. Um, if you’re playing a course where there’s a ton of wind and you might need to keep the ball lower, this might be a great option for you. If you’re somebody who likes to create a lot of versatility and hit a hit a bunch of different shots and and have the ability to kind of work the ball, these would be really good. Uh, for a lot of the average golfers out there, these are probably not the best thing to have in your bag just because of the lack of forgiveness versus a hybrid. So, we’ll have you hit a few with this 4iron. We’ll kind of get some baseline numbers for you and then I’ll put a hybrid in your hands and we’ll kind of compare the two. Sounds good. Yeah, this is definitely the cleanest club that I own because I think I’ve only hit it four times and three of those times were today. So, totally fine. Totally fine. We’ll hit a couple and we’ll just kind of take a look at uh at what we got here. [Music] So, pretty solid strike. Maybe a little bit off the toe. kind of in that 180 total ballpark, but you can see like that ball comes out fairly low. I mean, you only got that 14 yards there. Pretty low spin for you, which is again uh indicative of kind of just that lower trajectory. So, hit a couple more and then we’ll then we’ll switch to a hybrid and see what the differences are. Oh, that one I did not hit well at all. That’s fine. So, there’s your there’s your lack of forgiveness for everybody at home, right? This is not a club where if you hit it off center, it’s going to be super super helpful for you. Um, so that’s what you’ll see a lot of with with higher handicaps, even amateur golfers are playing longer irons. You’re going to see a lot of just that variability in the shots, right? So the first one you hit was close to 180. This one barely got over 100. Oh my gosh. Yeah. That’s not super helpful when you’re hitting a 4 iron on a on even a hole like this where it’s a par three. So yeah, there we go. That one’s better. straighter. But even still, like what I find with long irons is that um there gets to a point where it becomes so long that it doesn’t go any further than like my best club in the bag, like let’s say a seven. So, I mean, my four I’m definitely hitting a little further than my seven, but it’s not super proportional to the rest of my gapping in my bag. Yeah, totally. And that’s that’s what you’ll find with a lot of these clubs, especially as the shafts get longer, like they’re just harder to hit. to find the center with with longer irons. If you don’t generate a ton of club head speed like some of the best golfers in the world do, you’ll see those spin numbers be a lot lower. I mean, even that one, you hit, I’d say, really pretty well. That’s my best shot. Yeah. And it’s still only got 13 yards in the air. Your backspin is still only 2600. Like, that’s extremely low for a club like this for a distance that you’re trying to hit it. Yeah. Yeah. It might be beneficial if you’re trying to keep it out of the wind or hit it a little bit lower, but if you’re trying to like hold a green, which is really what you’d be doing here on this type of a hole, probably not going to have that much benefit cuz you’re going to have to land it short and just hope that it rolls. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Okay, maybe one more here. Yep. Let’s do this one and then we’ll test a hybrid. I mean, it’s crazy. It’s just not getting in the air at all. Yeah. So again, super low, lands short, rolls up, like totally fine if you’re trying to keep that out of the wind, but you can see just not exactly the ideal numbers for this type of a shot. So let’s grab a hybrid and let’s compare the two. So now we have a four hybrid. Okay. Uh much bigger obviously head design. So these clubs, big benefits here, obviously more forgiveness because there’s more weighting that you can move around and potentially adjust. So you have some some flexibility there. The other piece is just the adjustability. With how they’re making hybrids nowadays, you typically have the hoszle configurations that you can adjust. You can add loft, take loft off. So, those are some really nice benefits from a fitting perspective as well as from a students perspective if you really need to fine-tune some things. So, you’ll typically see more forgiveness, generally a little bit higher launch, just an easier club overall to hit, which is why I would say for a lot of golfers, these are going to be super helpful. One of the big negatives to a hybrid is just part of how they’re designed. they tend to be a little bit more draw biased because there typically tends to be a little bit more weight towards the heel of the club. So, you’ll sometimes see some better golfers prefer a longer iron versus a hybrid because they’re not going to have to fight that tendency for that ball to overhook. So, um for the majority of golfers, I’d say this is probably the best way to go. You’ll still see some players on tour playing some hybrids depending on uh what their set makeup is, but that’s that’s the general negative to these that they might have a little bit more of that draw bias. For people who slice, not a problem. That’s that’s actually what you would want. So, let’s hit a few with that one on this same hole here. Um, and let’s see kind of what we get from a difference in the in the flight perspective. Sounds good. How does the length of the shaft compared to a 4 iron? Significantly longer. So, these are going to be slightly longer, but again, you’ve got a little bit bigger club head, a little bit more area there for the forgiveness factor. It’s going to have higher MOI. So, yeah, while the shaft may be slightly longer, um, it’s still going to balance out because of the forgiveness you have built into the club head. Okay. Okay. Let’s see if I can do it. Oh, that one felt a lot better even though it still didn’t go very far. Yep. So, even there though, like I just compare that to the first couple you hit, like your launch angle is going to be a couple degrees higher, your 15. You got that 16 yards in the air. You can see your spin’s slightly closer to that 3,000. So, I mean, even that shot right there, just on the first swing, like you can see kind of the trend for you is moving in the right direction. Mhm. Definitely. I got a little bit of the ground with that. Yep. So, not perfect contact, but again, look at the difference in the result versus the 4 iron that you hit. So, the four iron that you hit that had terrible contact went 100 yards. This one goes closer to the green. Like, yeah, the spin’s still low. So, the height’s not perfect, but because of the forgiveness that’s built in, you still were able to get a somewhat reasonable shot out of it. Definitely. Yep. Same thing there. Really good swing. See how much higher that golf ball gets for Lexi when she’s hitting this club. And a lot more consistent with all my shots, too. Yep. So, again, launch around 15, max height closer to that 20 yards. Uh, your spin still in the high 2,000. So, yep. Um, let’s hit one more. There you go. Oh, I got on the green. Hey, nice job. Thank you. That was the objective. So, I mean, I think really the the lesson here for everybody is there’s really two reasons. It really depends what you’re looking for, what type of player you are, but like pros and cons. It’s not to say one is right and one is wrong. I would just look more towards like the use case for you as a student. So like for you, I mean you just hit eight shots for with each one. Like talk to me about kind of your feedback from each of those. Well, I think that I don’t use my long irons for a reason. Honestly, in my bag, I’m a 17 handicap and the longest iron I use is a sixiron and I really try not to even use my sixiron. Um just because I hit so much better with my shorter clubs or with a wood. Um, and so I mean we could see just by my shots like how much more consistent that was. And like you were saying, even with a bad shot, I’d rather get 20 yards from the green than like just send it out 100 yards and have to Yeah. hit the next one with that. Totally get it. So really I think for everybody watching this is really a good example of sort of the difference between the two. Like I think ultimately it’s just going to boil down to if you’re looking for either a hybrid or a long iron, I would go find a professional, go to Golf Tech, find somebody to walk through a fitting with. They can answer all those questions for you, really help you identify what’s best for your game and put you in the clubs that are going to make this game the easiest for you. So, um, good luck out there. [Music]