Types of Golf Clubs to Note

Golf clubs are essential to the game of golf. They come in different sizes and are made with different materials. Today, golf clubs are primarily made of wood, iron, a combination of iron and wood, putters, and wedges.

First off, woods are perceived as the golf club with the strongest propelling force on balls. They can propel a ball 200 to 350 yards when properly swung. Wood clubs were initially made of woods like permission and hickory. While wood clubs are so-called, today, they are made of metals like titanium and steel.

The wood has a flat bottom with a rounded and large head. The flat bottom of the wood allows it to glide over the turf after a shot. The clubface of the wood is quite large compared to other golf clubs. This golf club also has a degree of loft that is lower than other clubs. A loft refers to the angle between the clubface and the turf.

Woods with higher numbers have better lofts, and they are often used to hit the ball on a tee or in the fairway. The 1-wood or the driver are usually considered the least lofted golf clubs.

Consequently, Irons are golf clubs that come in sets of 3 to 9. Compared to woods, their club heads are smaller. They also come in two categories; blades and cavity back. While the blade has a full back at the head, the cavity back has a hollow and convex face. The lofts of irons have grooves that grip the golf ball and partly spin it. Irons are majorly used to shoot from the fairway, tees, and short holes.

The open and convex face of the cavity back usually creates an effect known as perimeter weighting. This gives the club lower mass centers and higher trajectories. This design ensures that a player can bend their shot around obstacles.

While wedges are golf clubs on their own, they are often categorised under irons. There are five types of wedges: the loft wedge, the pitching wedge, the approach or utility, and the gap wedge.

Of all golf clubs, wedges have the highest lofts. For instance, a lob wedge has a loft as high as 64 degrees, while a pitching wedge is as high as 46 to 51 degrees.

This means they are likely to be used for shorter shots and navigating the golf ball in sand bunkers. Players also use wedges to ensure that the golf ball flies high before landing on the putting surface. Golfers often prefer to use pitching wedges when they are about to swing shots about 130 yards away. On the other hand, a golfer can swing the ball as far as 110 yards with a gap wedge.

Hybrid clubs are the most recent types of clubs. Although golfers have used them for a long time, they only became popular at the beginning of the 21st century. As its name implies, the hybrid is a combination of wood and iron. Hybrids are often considered iron replacement clubs because golfers often use them to replace long irons.

Hybrid clubs have lofts ranging from 17 to 28 degrees. Similarly, they have clubheads that are smaller regular woods and have shaft lengths similar to irons. Recreational golfers majorly use hybrid clubs because they are easier to swing.