Gear: Cleveland Launcher Halo XL fairway woods Price:$249.99 each with Mitsubishi Tensei AV Blue shaft and Lamkin Crossline 360 grip Spec: Stainless steel head and face. Available as 3- (15 degrees), 5- (18 degrees), 7- (21 degrees) and 9-wood (24 degrees)
Who It’s For: Mid- and high-handicap golfers who want a forgiving fairway wood that also helps to provide more distance.
The Skinny: The Launcher Halo XL fairway woods are bigger than most fairway woods and have a lower profile to make them easy to hit, while the railed sole helps golfers increase consistency and avoid digging.
The Deep Dive: The Cleveland Launcher XL2 drivers are designed to be forgiving and help golfers generate more ball speed and distance off the tee, and the players who like that type of club are precisely who Cleveland is targeting with the Launcher Halo XL fairway woods.
The Halo XL fairways have a large, reassuring look. (David Dusek/Golfweek)
Golfers who routinely shoot in the high 80s, 90s or low 100s tend to lack consistency with their long clubs, which is a problem because they often need fairway woods on long par 4s and nearly all par 5s. So, Cleveland made the Launcher Halo XL fairway woods bigger, with larger hitting areas from heel to toe while maintaining a lower profile. Standing over the ball, it’s a confidence-inspiring look.
Like the Launcher XL2 drivers, the Launcher Halo XL fairway woods have been designed with Rebound Frame, which adds a flexible region behind the rigid topline and seam where the face meets the chassis. The result is the whole hitting area flexes back at the moment of impact, broadening the sweet spot on the variable-thickness face and helping to protect ball speed on off-center hits.
Rails on the sole of the Halo XL fairways help them glide through and over the turf more easily. (David Dusek/Golfweek)
Cleveland designers added a pair of rails on the bottom of each Launcher Halo XL fairway wood. They help the club slide through the turf more efficiently and maintain speed through the hitting zone, reducing the effects of ground-first contact and helping players get more distance.
The Launcher Halo XL fairway woods do not have an adjustable hosel system, but they are offered in four lofts ranging from a 15-degree 3-wood up to a 24-degree 9-wood, so players and fitters should be able to find the combination of clubs that logically fills distance gaps.
Gear: Cobra Darkspeed LS, Darkspeed X, Darkspeed Max fairway woods Price:$429 with UST Mamiya LIN-Q M40X White shaft and Lamkin Crossline grip. $329 (Darkspeed LS), with UST Mamiya LIN-Q M40X Blue or UST Mamiya LIN-Q M40X Red shaft (Darkspeed Max, X) Specs: Titanium face and body with carbon fiber crown and adjustable weights and adjustable hosel (Darkspeed LS); Stainless steel body and face with carbon fiber crown and moveable weights and adjustable hosel (Darkspeed Max, X). Available: January 11 (pre-sale), January 19 (in-stores)
Who It’s For: Golfers who want more ball speed and distance with some adjustability (Darkspeed LS). Golfers who want more distance and forgiveness (Darkspeed Max, X).
The Skinny:The Darkspeed LS has a titanium face and body with a carbon fiber crown for players who want a low-spin option off the tee that does not sacrifice distance. In contrast, the Max and the X versions have extra stability and forgiveness.
The Deep Dive: Finding just the suitable fairway wood can be challenging because you want a club that fills a distance gap and can hit a specific yardage both off the tee and from the fairway. With the release of the three Darkspeed fairway woods — the LS, the Max and the X — Cobra is giving players and fitters a wide variety of clubs and several different ball flights to choose from.
The most interesting is the Darkspeed LS, a club made for fast-swinging players who generate excessive spin and need a club that produces a lower ball flight.
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The Darkspeed LS, with its titanium face, titanium body and carbon fiber crown, is built like a driver. (David Dusek/Golfweek)
The Darkspeed LS was designed like a small driver, with a titanium body, titanium face and carbon fiber crown. The titanium faces in the Darkspeed LS fairway woods can be made thinner than their stainless steel counterparts, which saves weight while still allowing them to flex more at impact for increased ball speed.
Inside the Darkspeed LS, Cobra has added a 19-gram tungsten weight pad in the heel and two areas. The internal weights boost the moment of inertia (MOI) and, combined with the internal PWR Bridge bar that extends from the heel to the toe area, lowers the center of gravity (CG) location.
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The Darkspeed LS has three moveable weights in the sole. (David Dusek/Golfweek)
Opting for a titanium body and a carbon fiber crown saved even more weight, which allowed designers to add three moveable weights to the sole, two in the forward area and one in the back. The Darkspeed LS comes standard with two 15-gram weights and one 3-gram weight, and when the heavier weights are in the front, the club produces more ball speed, less spin and the lowest launch angle. However, players and fitters can move the weights to simultaneously boost stability and create either a draw or fade bias.
The Darkspeed LS comes in 13, 14.5 and 17.5-degree versions, but using the MyFly adjustable hosel, players and fitters can increase or decrease the loft by up to 1.5 degrees to help them find the ideal ball flight and distance.
The Darkspeed X and Max fairway woods are constructed similarly, but instead of using titanium, they each feature a 475 stainless steel PWRShell face and 17-4 stainless steel chassis.
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The Darkspeed X has a single weight in the back of the sole. (David Dusek/Golfweek)
The PWRShell face extends the hitting area below the leading edge and into the sole, which helps to broaden the sweet spot and enhance performance on low-struck shots. And, like the Darkspeed LS, the Darkspeed X and Max fairway woods have the MyFly adjustable hosel system, and an internal PWRBridge weight helps to lower the CG location to encourage higher-flying shots.
The Darkspeed X (15, 16.5, 18 and 21 degrees) has a 3-gram weight in the back of the sole that increases stability and gives the head a neutral shot-shape bias.
The MyFly adjustable hosel allows players and fitters to increase or decrease the loft by up to 1.5 degrees. (David Dusek/Golfweek)
The Darkspeed Max (15.5, 18.5 and 21.5 degrees) has two weight ports and comes standard with a 15-gram and a 3-gram weight, along with ports in the heel and back of the sole. When the heavier weight is in the heel, the Max has a draw bias, but when it is in the back, the MOI, forgiveness, spin rate and launch angle all go up.
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Who They’re For: Golfers looking for more distance and forgiveness along with shot-shaping ability off the tee and from the turf.
The Skinny: PXG uses multiple materials, including new stainless steel alloys and moveable weights, to boost forgiveness and let players tweak the launch angle and spin rate of its latest fairway woods.
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The Deep Dive: Golf equipment companies such as PXG don’t control how fast you swing a club or how well you strike the ball, but through research and clever engineering, they can make clubs that will optimize your good shots and reduce the severity of your mis-hits. It’s a tough job, and when it comes to fairway woods, it is even harder because fairway woods need to hit the ball to the same distance and on the same trajectory when you hit shots off the tee or from the turf.
PXG’s latest fairway wood, the Black Ops, uses exotic materials, moveable weights and an adjustable hosel to help golfers hit their fairway wood shots farther and more consistently.
A key to the Black Ops fairway woods is a new high-strength stainless steel alloy used in the face. PXG said it is stronger than other steels commonly used in fairway woods, so the hitting area can be made thinner and lighter. In fact, the face is now just 0.07 inches thick. That allows it to be more flexible at impact, which results in more ball speed, a higher launch angle and less spin.
The Black Ops fairway woods have also been made with a compression-molded carbon fiber crown that reduces weight on the top of the head and lowers the center of gravity. The chassis is made from a light but strong material, AM355 stainless steel, that allowed designers to save even more weight.
That saved mass has been repurposed in the form of three adjustable screws in the sole of the Black Ops, with the three ports located in the heel, toe and the back-middle areas. The club comes standard with a 12-gram weight in the back and 2.5-gram weights in the heel and toe to maximize forgiveness and help create a higher launch angle, but putting the heavier weight in the heel will encourage a draw and adding it to the toe port will create a fade bias.
To help golfers find a club that hits shots to the ideal distance, PXG has made the Black Ops with an adjustable hosel that can increase or decrease the loft by as many as 1.5 degrees and raise or lower the lie angle.
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Below are several images of the Black Ops fairway woods:
TaylorMade’s Qi10 fairway woods offer a blend of distance, forgiveness and spin.
Gear: TaylorMade Qi10, Qi10 Max, Qi10 Tour fairway woods Price:$349 each for the Qi10 or Qi10 Max with Fujikura Speeder NX TCS shaft, Fujikura Ventus Blue TR shaft or Mitsubishi Tensei AV Limited Blue shaft and Golf Pride Z-Grip grip. $449 for the Qi10 Tour. Specs: Carbon fiber crown with V-shaped sole plate, Speed Pocket and stainless steel face (Qi10, Qi10 Max); carbon fiber crown, titanium face, moveable weight and adjustable hosel (Qi10 Tour). Available: Feb. 2 for the Qi10, Qi10 Max; Feb. 16 for the Qi10 Tour, but available for pre-order NOW
Who They’re For: Golfers who want to maximize forgiveness and distance off the tee and from the fairway (Qi10, Qi10 Max), or low-handicap golfers who want adjustability, more distance off the tee and a more-compact shape (Qi10 Tour).
The Skinny: The standard Qi10 has been made to blend forgiveness and distance in an all-around fairway wood, while the Max version has a higher moment of inertia to make it extremely forgiving and easy to launch high into the air. The Qi10 Tour blends a titanium face with a sliding weight and adjustable hosel, making it the club low-handicap players can fine-tune easily.
The Deep Dive: TaylorMade has been a significant force in the fairway wood category since 2012, when the release of RocketBallz ushered in the era of nuclear-powered fairway woods that deliver driver-like distance. Since that time, the Carlsbad, California-based company has continued to refine shapes, work with new materials and design clubs that are as capable of splitting tight fairways off the tee as they are attacking long par 5s from the turf.
Golfers tend to be finicky when it comes to fairway woods, so one club can’t be perfect for every player. With the Qi10 fairway wood family, TaylorMade offers three very different clubs that share some key technologies.
The Qi10 fairway woods have massive carbon fiber crowns to remove weight from the top of the head and lower the center of gravity. (David Dusek/Golfweek)
Since 2015, TaylorMade fairway woods have had a distinctive look, combining a carbon fiber crown with a stainless steel piece that joins the crown and face. In some clubs, such as the M4, M6 and SIM fairway woods, that area was even white to create a contrast and help golfers improve their alignment. But in the Qi 10 fairway woods, that ledge area is gone. Now the carbon fiber crown, which is larger, extends to the seam where it meets the hitting area. TaylorMade refers to it as an Infinity Crown, and it not only creates a more-premium look in the address position, it also reduces weight in the top of the club.
To help golfers align shots more easily, TaylorMade added a subtle white line on the top portion of the hitting area, as it did in company’s previous Stealth 2 fairway woods.
All the Qi10 fairway woods, including the Max, have Twist Face to help golfers hit straighter shots. (David Dusek/Golfweek)
All the Qi10 fairway woods also feature Twist Face, the company’s design feature that peels back the high-toe area and low-heel areas of the face to help golfers hit straighter shots. There is also a Speed Pocket slot designed in the sole, directly behind the leading edge, that helps improve performance on thin shots and allows the lower portion of the hitting area to flex more efficiently. The Qi10 and Qi10 Max also feature a V-Steel sole design that lifts the heel and toe areas on the bottom of the club to reduce turf interaction and help golfers maintain speed through the hitting zone.
Inside the Qi10, TaylorMade added an internal 15-gram weight in the back and a 42-gram weight behind the face to improve stability while significantly increasing ball speed. The Qi10 Max has a 42-gram internal weight in the back and a 15-gram weight in the front, so it is more stable on mis-hits, generates more spin and should produce a higher launch for most golfers. In fact, the Qi10 Max has the highest moment of inertia of any fairway wood TaylorMade has made.
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The TaylorMade Qi10 Tour fairway wood (David Dusek/Golfweek)
For more-accomplished golfers and players who want to maximize adjustability, TaylorMade is offering the Qi10 Tour. The head is smaller (170 cubic centimeters) than the Qi10 (190 cubic centimeters) and the Qi10 Max (200 cubic centimeters), but it does have an Infinity carbon fiber crown like those clubs, plus Twist Face and a Speed Pocket in the sole. However, the Qi10 Tour has three significant features the other clubs lack.
The titanium face and carbon fiber crown combination allowed engineers to give the Qi10 Tour a 50-gram sliding weight, enabling players and fitters to shift the center of gravity forward to reduce spin, increase ball speed and produce a lower launch angle. Moving the weight back increases spin and should produce a higher ball flight with more forgiveness.
Finally, the Qi10 Tour also has an adjustable hosel that allows the stated loft to be increased or decreased by as many as 2 degrees.
