What Clubs Should Be At The Top Of Your Golf Bag? Fairway wood vs hybrid vs long iron

When it comes to setting up your golf bag, some decisions are easy. But what about that awkward gap between your driver and irons?

Equipment editor Hannah Holden tests out fairway woods, hybrids and long irons to see which is the best option for the top of your golf bag.

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Hi, I’m Hannah Holden; welcome to my channel!

I am a +2 golfer from Leeds

This YouTube channel aims to help you improve your golf by offering up-to-date reviews on the latest golf equipment, stats on how scratch golfers shoot low scores, and course vlogs to help improve your course management.

I also partner with PGA Golf Professionals such as @jrbackhousegolf to bring you tips to improve your golf game.

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those three balls are literally on top of each other they’ve just done exactly the same thing that’s super impressive I’m making a bag swap what clubs should be at the top of your golf B it can be really easy to get fitted for some new irons maybe even a driver in a 3-wood but what goes in the Gap in the middle today I’m going to testing three different options from Calla to help you see the differences in ball flly Spin and just how they perform from different lies and scenarios to help you pick what should be going in the top of your bag first up let’s start with the hybrid this is probably typically the club I have used the most in that Gap filling spot in my bag throughout history and I think really initially that was kind of an accident it was just something I’d got given tried liked and then ended up using quite a lot Through The Years so I’ve got the C Paradigm AI smoke PHL in this just because the 21 Loft was kind of quite a good Gap to match in with the other clubs that I’ve got to test here there’s a few reasons I really like a hybrid I think they’re very versatile so they’re quite easy to on the tea off the Fairway but also if you get into the roof they’re a little bit small than say a fairway was so sometimes you can get down into kind of those lies that aren’t very nice and get the ball out quite well obv I’m on the tea at the moment we’re going to hit all three clubs from here see what the differences are in terms of kind of launch height trajector it then move down into some different lines and see how they perform there this hybrid looks super good behind the ball I like how Compact and round it is and but they’re really sharp like straight face lines now one thing you can find with hybrids is they do go quite high so sometimes Nishu in the wind it’s quite windy here today so we’re definitely going to be testing that out so actually stayed pretty straight though really nice strike really nice high ball fly I think that’s a key for a lot of people if you struggle with getting height getting more hybrids in the top of your bag setup is really going to help I mean so many people now I think their longest iron really should be a s eyon and those 6 54 you should really be looking at replacing with a hybrid because they’re so much easier to Launch get really good height on you’re going to get more Hang Time and carry because of that and they’re going to land steeper so you can actually get the ball to stop on the green rather than just running through which kind of happens at this time of year as the greens are getting firmer what I like about this is actually really consistent despite it’s being windy despite having quite a high Loft it’s launched in a really nice place but it’s consistent and it’s kind of yes it is moving a little bit in the wind but more than five and 10 yards which I think is pretty impressive in this much of a crosswind now another thing I really like about hybrids is you get more spin than you would get with a long iron now lots of people can struggle to generate enough spin which means they can’t always control the ball around the green so with this I’m looking between High threes low 4000s of spin which is really going to give me a good amount of control God these are really nice I’m making a back swap so so if we take a little look at the numbers here in terms of carry distance that’s averaged out 181.50 probably could get a little bit more out of it it wasn’t so windy but I don’t think that’s bad in terms of distance for like 21 degrees of Loft the spins averaged out 4,100 the launch angle was 15.2 but then that was paired with a land angle of 41.1 which is going to give me pretty good stopping power paired with that amount of spin the height got up to 80.8 spe on a R which is pretty good my dis verion was is really consistent let’s see what happens in the other clubs and the comparison while you’re here I would really appreciate if you could hit that subscribe button over 75% of people who watch this channel aren’t subscribed and it really helps us in terms of what content we can go and create in the future so I would really appreciate it and if you could hit that like button while you’re there or even drop us a comment and let us know if there’s any other videos you’d like to see on the channel right back to the video okay seven wood time again we’ve got this in the C Paradigm a smoke range this is the maxd model so it might be a little bit draw bias I picked this cuz it’s also 21° of Loft so it’s going to be kind of a direct Loft comparison compared to that hybrid and we’re really just going to see the differences in kind of ball fly compared to just what the other head Tech is and the difference in the head shaping this is going to be really interesting because I used to love carrying a seven wood when I was younger but then I just got out of the habit of using it and obviously we’ve got a bigger head so in theory we could big get in more forgiveness here a little bit more weight in the bottom of the so going really interesting to see kind of how this compares to the hybrid and what kind of pros and cons there are between the two looks great behind the ball this as well too I like the fact it’s really shallow cuz for me I think that just helps you feel like you can hit it off more eyeses oh definitely gone higher that’s definitely gone higher interesting if you’re someone who needs to hit it higher maybe you just need a seven wood you could go seven wood nine wood I mean Michelle we at one point had a seven wood a nine wood and an 11 wood in her bag and she’s like an LPG to major winner so she can do it any of us should be taking that [Music] advice if you play a lot on links cares maybe I wouldn’t advise this club because it is literally Moon balling but if you play on Parkland plac where you got to hit up to raise green and need the ball to stop or if you’re just someone who struggles to get the extra height this is really going to help and interestingly it’s still spinning really well up in mid 4000s which I really like and actually this dispersion is so super tight even better than the hybrid which is probably not why expected and again the ball Flats really consistent this is getting up to nearly 100 ft of height which is really good in terms of that those three balls are literally on top of each other they’ve just done exactly the same thing that’s super impressive God I could be changing my whole back out okay so if we look at the averages again that was one yard longer 182.5 although I said the distance was a little bit more consistent my shortest shot was two yards longer than my shortest shot with the hybrid I mean the dispersion was just insane obviously in terms of height it went higher 16 16t higher on average which is a lot and we kind of saw that in the land angle as well that got to 45 that’s like a really good number it’s perfect for just getting the right amount of control when the balls landed on the greens if you’re someone who has to hit long clubs into the green a lot and you need more stopping power I would definitely be looking at this club I was super impressed with how consistent that was like I thought given how high it was it would kind of lose control but I think there was enough balance of like ball speed and spin to kind of keep it in the right place so that’s got kind of 300 RPM PM more spin 16 feet more height and 5 degrees more land just going to give you more controll stop the ball now obviously there’s going to be some of you thinking I don’t want to hit it high I already hit it really High I need another option so don’t worry we’ve got a utility iron to look at now right last up driving iron I would say if this three this is generally the one that’s a bit harder to hit it can typically be seen as something maybe just for people with faster Club head speeds but I don’t think that’s always true I think it does suit people who maybe hit down on the golf ball a lot more compress the ball a bit more you can get more consistent strike with this whereas some of the other options might be better if you’re a bit shallow and you like to sweep the ball I have to say this looks so good good I’ve not hit this yet so I’m super excited to see how this performs now again this is pretty similar we’ve got 20° of lost which is close as we could get to match the other two this does have a slightly heavier shaft too so we might see differences because of that what’s quite nice about this is it looks really nice and compact behind the ball but it does have a bit of like width to the so so it doesn’t feel too scary to it start line definitely wasn’t as good on that it felt like I had to like it a lot better to hit it in the right place and it was distinctly clear how much lower that flew so if you’re someone who plays Links Golf want something that goes Flat runs out you definitely need to be looking more in this kind of iron category carried 172 though which isn’t dreadful for like how poor the strike was it’s kind of only five yards shorter than my worst H oh that was really nice you get it that’s a seriously powerful ball FL that that’s gone especially in the wind that’s gone a lot better and kind of run out more than I would seen with the other clubs feel like absolutely ripped that though and it’s only carried 178 nowhere near the like longer Woods i h even though they were going up in the air and the wind so if we look at the averages there it’s noticeable that dispersion was suddenly a lot bigger and the ball flight changed load so the spins Dro down to 3,200 which is like a, less than we’ve seen with the other options the heights dropped down to 54 ft that’s nearly half what we saw with the seven wood which is pretty crazy and the carry is 175 my best got up to 178 and that land angle dropped down to 31 so I remember when I said about 45 being really optimal for control 31 is going to be great if you’re playing like firm and fast courses you want to hit this off the te you want something that you can start straight and just let it run out it’s not going to be great if you trying to fly this onto a green and try and get it to stop because that pair with like the lower spin is just not really going to give you enough control so I think you can see from this like just how much like the ball flag can change through changing the type of golf club if you’re someone who maybe’s always carried long irons and just thought that was the typical way to play golf and you maybe struggle with height you see how maybe changing options here would help you control the ball more get better hang time and also get more carry distance probably but also if you someone who thinks oh I’ve got seven would I really struggle in the wind what should I be using using of this kind of utility iron is really going to help out let’s go hit a few for some different lies and see what the versatility is like and if there’s one club that maybe would be more versatile for different like rounds different courses different lies okay this was going about 175 average before we’ve got 180 to the front of the green I think I’m going to struggle to stop this out the roof it’s going to also be interesting to see how that kind of spin number changes it’s come on there a lot nicer than I have expected though it is running a lot it’s up there well actually it stopped pretty much just past pin High somehow I got more spin on that than I did off the tea someone want explain that to me 4,300 spin maybe the fact I did have it teed up generally if you do tea the ball you do lose a little bit of spin so actually may hitting it off the ground a bit better tell you what that’s actually stopping a lot quicker than I’d expected to but kind of shows you the difference in terms of like kind of the total difference there versus just the carry off the tea and the run out because I’m getting that all the way back to the pin so it’s really running out nice it’s kind of nice you can just land at the front and let it slowly release out the back of the green 4,500 spin on that so again a little bit more spin carry is down a bit out of the roof it’s not quite as easy to strike it as clean get shot was 168 and that was my longest carry so far it’s a surprise me actually it’s been a lot more versatile than I expected it felt a lot easier to strike out the roof which I wasn’t sure if it would or not that one’s dropped down 3 three again in terms of spin but actually the spin was a little bit more the height on that was 40t so if you’re someone who plays at a course where the front of the greens are quite open like this you can run the ball in this is definitely a club that will suit those scenarios I don’t think I would have been as happy if I had to kind of fly over a bunker and then stop it quite quickly okay seven wood this could be interesting cuz I guess in my mind I would think that this might not be that easy to hit out of the roof obviously we’ve got more variability in lie it’s a bigger Club head how easy will it to be a strike I’ve kind of just been proved wrong by the driving iron though so maybe that’ll happen again this is a really shallow model so it does feel more like it could be easier to hit than some and I struck it lovely but it was a very big pull not quite seeing how that reacted on the green cuz it definitely missed it oh it’s so nice that ball FL is literally unreal can’t believe it’s still going so high out of that kind of sat down line the spins dropped off massively though 1,800 spin wow not have expected that you kind of get aw with it though cuz you’ve got the height there’s less than we saw off the te so dropped down to 71 ft which is really [Music] interesting tell you what although the ball flly is nice and High the spin rate still not that high that was 22 which was better than kind of the 1800 Mark and obviously the ball is coming out a lot higher but the land angle’s not load steeper than it was with the utility iron I want say it’s stopping excessively quicker it definitely did go further it was a little it was definitely easier to strike that last wasn’t wasn’t quite as good in terms of contact but I did get one that carried out at 190 compared to 168 was the best with the iron definitely something there in terms of the ease of strike and the the ability to generate distance from different lies the island average was carrying 160 there for a total of 180 and the wood was 170 for a total of 19 199 so it actually still was get nearly 30 yards of run which is actually more than the utility L obviously there was more Ball s more distance so I guess in theory you would expect maybe a bit more total difference but distance but I would have expected kind of the height to get the ball to stop quicker than it did right let’s see if we see any difference with the hybrid this would be the one I would expect to be the best in this scenario so let’s see if I’m right about that all oh that was so nice dead straight the pin nice high ball flight looks like it’s bounc less looks like it’s only going in the hole not going to lie much better spin there 4,800 which is really interesting 166 carries so not excessively different um to the other ones but 178 total so definitely not as much run out and that was 78 height so again really nice high ball fight that’s almost identical I pushed it a tiny bit you can’t perfect every time 5,000 spin there that’s really good 168 carry 179 total 85 height even better oh no I blocked it it’s safe though I would definitely say that was easily the most consistent of the bunch there I mean the consistency of the distance there was mental like there barely five yards from front to back which is really good now I think some of this goes to show you they should just be thinking a little bit more about the top of the bag setup because actually you could go somewhere for a fit in and maybe hit off a mat or off the Fairway and find something that works really well for you but will it work in all different scenarios on the golf course so definitely think about how the ball flight is going to change if you kind of fit into something and you think oh that’s just kind of on the border of being me hitting it high enough maybe you should be going into something else because when you bring it into the roof or different lies it’s not always going to fly perfectly like it does off that map or Fairway scenario I was kind of really bowled Away by the seven wood off the tea and I still really like the performance of that but actually it’s kind of sticking to like my theory that I am best with a hybrid because it’s what I’ve been most consistent with really in different scenarios here and for me I know I hit it in the rough a lot so I need a little bit of that versatility overall I don’t think there’s really a right or wrong answer to what you put and play at the top of your bag and obviously it’s going to be very personal based on your swing what kind of course you play at and what you prefer I think like the real message here is just to test different options out and actually think about where you’re going to be playing what ball flight you might need if you need more or less Spin and what you’re really trying to achieve with those clubs are the things you’re purely going to hit off the tea or are the stuff you want to control the ball with into the green I think if you think about those things and answer those questions it should kind of become clear to you which option is going to be the best also if you know you’re someone that struggles maybe out of the roof maybe you can see that there were some clubs that were definitely more consistent there like the hybrid and maybe think about putting them in play for me though I think I’m going to be sticking with the hybrid let me know what you think your option is going to be or if there’s anything else you want to see us testing