fairway woods for low handicap golfers

TaylorMade Qi10, Qi10 Max, Qi10 Tour 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).

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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.

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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.

TaylorMade Qi10 Max fairway wood — 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.

The standard Qi10 is available in lofts of 15, 18, 21 and 24 degrees. It is slightly shorter from front to back than the Qi10 Max, which is offered in 16-, 19- and 22-degree versions. Sharp-eyed golfers might see that, and they will also see that the Qi10 Max has a lower profile, but inside the Qi10 and Qi10 Max is where the most significant differences can be found.

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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TaylorMade Qi10 Tour fairway woods — 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.

First, the Qi10 Tour, which will only be offered in 15- and 18-degree versions, has a titanium face like a driver, so designers could make it thinner and lighter without sacrificing durability.

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.

[afflinkbutton text=”Shop TM Qi10 fairway wood” link=”https://globalgolfcreator.pxf.io/AWM3Kj”]

[afflinkbutton text=”Shop TM Qi10 Max fairway wood” link=”https://globalgolfcreator.pxf.io/GmdVDV”]

[afflinkbutton text=”Shop TM Qi10 Tour fairway wood” link=”https://globalgolfcreator.pxf.io/eKZERr”]

Below are more close-up images of the Qi10 fairway woods:

Callaway Paradym Ai Smoke fairway woods

Callaway Paradym Ai Smoke fairway woods are for people who want more distance off the tee and from the fairway with ball-speed protection on mis-hits.

Gear: Callaway Paradym Ai Smoke fairway woods
Price: $349.99 with Project X Cypher 2.0 shaft, Project X Denali Black shaft or Mitsubishi Tensei AV Blue shaft and Golf Pride Tour Velvet 360 grip
Specs: Forged stainless steel face and body with carbon fiber crown and adjustable hosel
Available: Feb. 2, but available via pre-order NOW

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Who They’re For: Golfers who want more distance off the tee and from the fairway, plus ball-speed protection on mis-hits.

The Skinny: Using artificial intelligence, Callaway created different faces for each of the four Paradym Ai Smoke fairway woods so they are optimized to enhance distance and protect ball speed for specific types of players.

The Deep Dive: Fairway woods can be the most challenging clubs to design because engineers need to deliver the ideal flight and desired distance both off the tee and on shots hit off the turf. It’s not easy.

In the four Paradym Ai Smoke fairway woods, Callaway studied thousands of swings made by a wide variety of golfers and developed unique “Swing Codes,” mapping where players of different abilities make contact on the face.

[afflinkbutton text=”Shop Callaway Paradym Ai Smoke fairway woods” link=”https://worldwidegolfshops.pxf.io/y26PMD”]

As you would suspect, accomplished golfers found the center of the hitting area often and delivered the club to the ball on a neutral path, while mid- and higher-handicap players made contact all over the face and tended to swing from out to in. Callaway also observed that many players who struggle to make solid, consistent contact tend to have a steep angle of attack into the ball. At the same time, accomplished golfers only swing down slightly as they hit fairway woods.

So Callaway utilized artificial intelligence to optimize performance for different players. Engineers instructed supercomputers to virtually design and test thousands of faces to reveal which could deliver a blend of distance and ball-speed protection on mis-hits for different types of players. The result is four faces, each with unique thick and thin areas, that are now in the four Paradym Ai Smoke fairway woods.

The standard Paradym Ai Smoke Max fairway wood will be available as a 3-wood, 3HL, 5-wood, Heavenwood, 7-wood, 9-wood and 11-wood. It has a carbon fiber crown to reduce weight on the club’s top and help lower the center of gravity. Removing a pair of stainless steel reinforcing beams from the sole that were present in the original Paradym Max fairway woods saved another 24 grams of weight.

For fast-swinging players and golfers who generate excessive spin, Callaway designed the Paradym Ai Smoke Triple Diamond – available as a 3-, 5- and 7-wood – with a forward center of gravity that increases ball speed, reduces spin and helps produce a more piercing ball flight. The Triple Diamond is smaller than the other Paradym Ai Smoke fairway woods. Callaway designed it with a stainless steel sole instead of a carbon fiber sole because the weight saved by going with carbon fiber would be minimal.

For golfers who tend to slice the ball, Callaway offers the Paradym Ai Smoke Max D, a draw-biased fairway wood that comes as a 3-, 3HL, 5- and 7-wood.

Callaway also offers the Paradym Ai Smoke Max Fast, which comes standard with a lighter shaft and grip and is available as a 3-, 5-, 7- and 9-wood for players who struggle to generate speed and distance.

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[afflinkbutton text=”Shop Paradym Ai Smoke Max D fairway wood” link=”https://worldwidegolfshops.pxf.io/LXdyMO”]

[afflinkbutton text=”Shop Paradym Ai Smoke Max Fast fairway wood” link=”https://worldwidegolfshops.pxf.io/k021rM”]

Check out several images of the Paradym Ai Smoke fairway woods below.