|  It's
a fact of life every golfer must face sooner or later: that grassy
lie you used to hit from with a wood so effortlessly now doesn't
get there. The strength and skill required to loft the tough lie
onto the green diminishes, and you're left with a choice of evils:
to get out your long iron and settle for a shorter approach, or
to go on as before and hope for the best.
Now manufacturers, after their initial product
introductions of a few years ago, have refined their fairway woods
that offer, to all levels of golfers, products that enhance their
game, reduce their miss-hits, increase distance and therefore,
lower score. In fact, many of the PGA Tour players are carrying
seven woods and LPGA players even nine and eleven woods.
These new models have a lower center of gravity
that ensures that the ball is lofted from almost any stroke.
Of the major golf manufacturers whose products
are superlative are those of Kasco, Orlimar, Adams, Tour Edge
and TaylorMade. These manufacturers are the standouts. We have
omitted knockoffs, and there are many. Suffice to say, you get
what you pay for, so be forewarned and stick with the major brands.
According to PGA teaching professional Mike Major
of Torrey Pines Golf School, the low profile clubs are a trend
away from matched clubs and toward ever more specialized gear.
"It's not for everyone, but these clubs are excellent if
you're in a grassy lie. Since the weight is at the bottom, you
don't have to hit the ball fat as you would with traditional woods,
where much of the mass is in the upper part of the club head."
TaylorMade, golf's number one manufacturer, 200
Steel fairway woods are not only number one on all Tours, but
are in fact the number one selling fairway woods today. These
woods appeal to both the professional and low handicapper primarily,
but mid to high handicappers enjoy the benefits of pure feeling
shots, great aesthetics and playability features of these woods.
The exceptional performance of 200 Steel fairway
woods is based on a combination of cutting edge design elements,
including TaylorMade's Powerband Crown, Powerframe Technology,
Trapezoidal Sole Pad, Internal Weight Pad Technology, and Dual
Rail Sole design.
The Fujikara shafts have contributed to the wood's
outstanding distance and control features. Many of our testers
enjoyed the "user-friendly" feel and look of the 200
Steel fairway wood, but were most impressed at the distance achieved
and great setup. Many of the testers use TaylorMade's Series 300
Drivers and felt "complete" with the availability of
these woods in steel rather than titanium.
Available in 2, 3, 4,
5, 7, and 9.
www.taylormadegolf.com
MSRP $299.00
 Barney
Adam's original Tight Lies was the American pioneer both in design
and marketing techniques of fairway woods. To keep up in the rapidly
changing world of high-end golf equipment Adams released a new
version of their hugely popular Tight Lies. A sharper look and
numerous subtle refinements have been incorporated into the new
edition. Today, the most current Tight Lies, the GT Series, is
Adam's thinnest faced fairway wood ever and is over 44% thinner
than the Original Tight Lies face for maximum distance. A new
heel-weighting zone and optimal offset helps square the clubface
for that famous Straighter Is Better shot. And of course, the
patented "upside-down" steel club head design is truly
easier to hit. The aesthetics of the GT are superb and very pleasing.
The GT Tight Lies comes in lofts of 13°, 15°, 17°,
19° and 21° with either a Graffaloy shaft or Adam's proprietary
GT shaft made of steel with graphite tips that Senior Tour players
call the "best iron shaft in golf".
Adams Golf had a great showing recently at the
Bruno's Memorial Classic Senior Tour Event. With Tight Lies GT
Fairway Woods and GT Irons in his bag, Adams Golf staff player
Sammy Rachels took home the trophy. In fact, 3 of the top 6 finishers
played with Adams equipment. Larry Nelson finished third and Bruce
Lietzke finished sixth using the GT Tour irons and GT Fairway
Woods. Tom Watson is another Adams staff player.
During testing by our panel of 25 pros and high
handicappers, 20 of the 25, mainly higher-handicappers favored
the GT over their current fairway woods – an excellent endorsement!
www.adamsgolf.com
MSRP $199.95
 Orlimar,
another of the original innovators of the modern fairway woods,
the TriMetal Wood, has also introduced their next generation of
performance driven metalwoods. Exclusive to Orlimar, hipSteelª
is the combination of a new Carpenter Metals alloy and the application
of Hot Isostatic Processing resulting in a metal that is 5% harder
and 10% stronger than the original TriMetal.
At 1.7mm* and 1.9mm* thin, the hipSteelª
fairway metal, features the thinnest, strongest and hottest steel
faces in golf. Redistributing this weight to other parts of the
clubhead allowed Orlimar to create a lower center of gravity and
added rear weighting for maximum stability and forgiveness on
off-center hits.
The aesthetics of this wood are also exceptional
and our testers, especially the better players, really enjoyed
the performance of these woods. The feeling of the ball rocketing
off the face is very evident to our testing staff. They all felt
that these new woods are far superior to the previous models Orlimar
offered.
The hipSteel fairway metalwoods are a score to
a score and a half deeper than the TriMetal Plus Fairway Metals
and will be offered in 12 degree to 22 degree lofts.
www.orlimar.com
The hipSteel metalwoods line will be priced at
$239 for graphite and $179
for steel shafts.
The woods are available in 12°, 14°,
16°, 18°, 20° and 22° degrees with graphite shafts
 The
K2K from Kasco is in a class of its own –a new domain of
clubs that can be best classified as "Long Range Attack Woods".
It is one of those inventions that allow a company from being
an also ran to the Master of their Domain. It is a club that completely
revolutionizes a player's game, strategy and style.
The Super Hyten club heads are made with uniquely
fine molds developed by Kasco using their own precise casting
equipment. The Super Hyten club heads are half the thickness of
a normal titanium head, which therefore allows for greater sensitivity
of head design.
Kasco has transferred the weight to the sole,
making it heavier for a lower and deeper center of gravity resulting
in a higher trajectory and ease in getting the ball airborne more
easily than ever before.
Of special note is that with the advent and use
of Super Hyten, there is no need for Kasco to insert or add any
other materials such as tungsten gravity screws on the bottom
or face unlike the majority of other manufacturers. The result
therefore is that the energy loss at impact is avoided at the
junction of two (or multiple) different metals. This translates
into maximum power transfer to the ball at impact and maximum
distance.
The design of the K2K, while somewhat unusual,
affords a "super wide Sweet Area" making the K2K very
easy to hit, very forgiving and very straight. With the K2k's
full rounded sole, hitting from any conditions such as bunkers
or roughs is extremely easy. The bore through shaft with its reinforced
tip ensures maximum stability and straight ball flight at impact.
While the K2K comes with a standard Kasco proprietary
shaft, we re-shafted all the clubs with the new UST Pro 75 ATR
shaft. Our testers were basically astounded and flabbergasted
by the result. Each and every club performed demonstrably superior
in both feel and especially distance. The #55 produced distances
of 230 to 260 yards equating to 20 to 30 yards more than the standard
shaft. Well worth the switch.
The K2K is currently available in a #22 (13°),
#33 (16°), #44 (19°) and #55 (22°). #77(24°) and
#99 (26°), and is very pricey at $380.00 per wood.
www.kascogolf.com
MSRP $399.00
Our 25 testers recorded the highest satisfaction
rating of over 95% of any club tested in the past two years. The
ONLY negative being that one has to "acclimatize oneself"
to the unique design. Nevertheless, the results obtained by almost
all the testers responses reduced this slight negative to "not
really a problem". The proof was in the pudding –great
feel, very user-friendly, accurate and marvelous distance.
Tour Edge's new proprietary x-88 Hyper Steel
fairway woods also drew rave reviews from our testers. The setup
and feel were the two most talked about facets of these woods.
The steel's strength allowed the walls of the
Hyper Steel woods to be extremely thin. The result is a wood capable
of a spring-like effect not ordinarily possible in other stainless
steel designs. X-88 also allows the shallow faced Hyper Steel
fairway woods to play with exceptional control and feel.
Also, the X-88 forged Hyper Steel face is progressively
thinner from driver to fairway wood. This technology produces
the highest possible rebound rate for each wood in the set..
Available in men's and women's in Driver 7.5°,
8.5°, 9.5°, 10.5°, Long 2 (11°), Long 3 (13°),
Any Lie 3 (14.5°), Any Lie 4 (16.5°), Any Lie 5 (18.5°),
Any Lie 7 (21°), Any Lie 9 (24°). Right and left hand
models offered.
www.touredge.com
MSRP $200.00.
Also tested was the Callaway Steel Head III,
PING's exorbitantly priced new TiSI Tec 3 wood ($400), Cobra's
SS Fairway woods and Wilson's Deep Red Series. While these brands
are well known, their fairway wood models fell behind those above
described.
Irrespective of all the advertising dollars paid
to Tour pros and media buys, testing by each golfer of all models
available is highly suggested prior to purchasing.
All clubs are available through pro shops or
direct from the manufacturer. All have rated distance capabilities
of 184 to 224 yards plus. Customer service is exemplary from all
the manufacturers, especially TaylorMade.
For those golfers who prefer a fairway wood rather
than a driver, and in the opinion of this writer, many more should
use either a 3 or 5 wood versus a driver; the two best of those
discussed are undoubtedly the PING TiSI Tec followed by the Callaway
Steelhead III. Both offer great stability, accuracy and good distance.
|
Great Fairway Woods from Kasco, Orlimar, Adams, 
