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Best fairway woods of 2023: Expert club fitters recommend the most versatile and forgiving options

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Having the right fairway woods is essential for golfers of all skill levels looking to get the most out of their long games — whether it be approach shots into longer par 4’s and par 3’s, going after par 5’s in two, or just trying to hit more fairways off the tee — finding the best fairway wood of 2023 to fit your needs is a must.

Looking at the best fairway wood playing field for 2023, we continue to see more fairway wood options from every manufacturer. What used to be a single model release has been expanded to three—and in some cases even four—models to fit specific player types.

These new fairway woods impress us with their ability to utilize new technology and construction methods to go faster, and further, while also offering never-before-seen levels of forgiveness. It’s now easier than ever to find the right one that matches your swing.

That being said, ultimately the best way to find the best fairway woods for you is to work with a professional fitter using a launch monitor. The difficult part is a lot of people don’t have easy access to fitters, launch monitors, and club builders — so at GolfWRX — with the help of our panel of expert fitters — we have done a lot of the work for you to narrow down your short list.

Best fairway woods of 2023: Meet the fitters

2023 best fairway woods: The categories

We have broken our 2023 best fairway wood list into two categories.

  1. Best fairway wood for golfers seeking forgiveness 
  2. Best fairway wood for golfers seeking versatility

We selected this format for fairway woods because every golfer fits into one of these two “want” categories regardless of age, handicap, or sex, and for a lot of golfers, forgiveness is the number one factor when selecting a fairway wood.

Before we started building the survey, we reached out to our trusted fitters to discuss how they sort through the fairway wood options available to golfers. Forgiveness and versatility were the highest-ranked choices.

Most versatile fairway woods 2023

Titleist TSR2

TSR2 fairways feature the lowest CG in Titleist history for an all-steel construction designed to create speed and launch without excessive spin. New Open Hosel Construction created space for sizable improvements to key areas of performance by removing unwanted weight high and towards the heel.

For the full technology breakdown, check out our launch piece.

Callaway Paradym

With a primarily carbon sole, Callaway engineers designed the Paradym fairway woods in that spirit of weight savings and redistribution. A.I. Designed Jailbreak Batwing is pushed to the perimeter of the club to stiffen the body of Paradym woods, while still allowing the face to flex for high ball speeds. Paradym fits the largest segment of the fitting bell curve and promotes high launch and a neutral ball flight.

For the full technology breakdown, check out our launch piece.

Ping G430 Max

Ping developed Carbonfly Wrap in a bid to deliver more distance by positioning the CG closer to the face to maximize ball speed, resulting in higher, longer carries. The lightweight composite crown wraps into the heel and toe sections of the skirt, creating weight savings of 10 grams, which are reallocated to achieve the lower CG and increase ball speed. The composite also plays a role in the pleasing sound, while a tungsten backweight extends the perimeter weighting to ensure forgiveness.

For the full technology breakdown, check out our launch piece.

TaylorMade Stealth 2 Plus

Breakthrough movable weight technologies and versatile designs are the hallmarks of the 2023 TaylorMade Stealth 2 fairway woods. Stealth 2 Plus is branded as “three fairway woods in one” owing to the unique performance characteristics afforded by the 50-gram sole weight.

For the full technology breakdown, check out our launch piece.

Titleist TSR3

Titleist’s adjustability focused fairway wood is designed with a new, easy-to-adjust 5-position SureFit Adjustable CG Track System to fine tune performance. It features the same Open Hosel Construction as TSR2 fairways. The TSR3’s CG has been positioned deeper, slightly lower, and closer to face center to provide easy, high launch with plenty of forgiveness.

For the full technology breakdown, check out our launch piece.

Most forgiving fairway woods 2023

Ping G430 Max

Ping developed Carbonfly Wrap in a bid to deliver more distance by positioning the CG closer to the face to maximize ball speed, resulting in higher, longer carries. The lightweight composite crown wraps into the heel and toe sections of the skirt, creating weight savings of 10 grams, which are reallocated to achieve the lower CG and increase ball speed. The composite also plays a role in the pleasing sound, while a tungsten backweight extends the perimeter weighting to ensure forgiveness.

For the full technology breakdown, check out our launch piece.

Callaway Paradym X

With a primarily carbon sole, Callaway engineers designed the Paradym fairway woods in that spirit of weight savings and redistribution. A.I. Designed Jailbreak Batwing is pushed to the perimeter of the club to stiffen the body of Paradym woods, while still allowing the face to flex for high ball speeds. Paradym X is a draw-biased, high-launching, high-MOI fairway wood, a forged carbon toe patch shifts weight to the heel.

For the full technology breakdown, check out our launch piece.

TaylorMade Stealth 2

The 3D carbon crown is slightly lower than Stealth, which positions CG lower in the club and away from the toe. This allows engineers to move more weight rearward in the club for additional forgiveness. Engineers again employ the V Steel sole, which helps position weight low for deeper CG and improves turf interaction for versatility from different lies.

For the full technology breakdown, check out our launch piece.

Titleist TSR2

TSR2 fairways feature the lowest CG in Titleist history for an all-steel construction designed to create speed and launch without excessive spin. New Open Hosel Construction created space for sizable improvements to key areas of performance by removing unwanted weight high and towards the heel.

For the full technology breakdown, check out our launch piece.

TaylorMade Stealth 2 HD

Branded as an easy-to-hit addition to the Stealth family and the fairway wood for players who struggle to hit their fairway woods, Stealth 2 HD features an oversized 200cc head and ultra-high MOI construction for maximum playability. Large, low-profile sole helps launch the ball higher. Stealth 2 HD is internally weighted for a draw bias.

For the full technology breakdown, check out our launch piece.

Again, we can’t thank the fitters enough for their time, and we hope that in your search for your best fairway wood for 2023, we can help you find it!

Join the discussion about the best fairway woods of 2023 in the forums.

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Voting is live: 2023 GolfWRX Members Choice presented by 2nd Swing!

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We’re proud to partner with 2nd Swing Golf to bring you GolfWRX Members Choice 2023! 2nd Swing has more than 100,000 new and pre-swung golf clubs available in six store locations and online. Check them out here

The bedrock of GolfWRX.com is the community of passionate and knowledgable golfers in our forums, and we put endless trust in the opinions of our GolfWRX members — the most knowledgeable community of golfers on the internet. No other group of golfers in the world tests golf clubs as frequently or as extensively, or is armed with such in-depth information about the latest technology and gear.

On that note, we just launched our 2023 GolfWRX Members Choice awards, and the polls are now open.

We want to hear from you, not just with a vote but with your comments too!

Please vote in the Members Choice categories below!

And don’t forget to comment with the reasoning for your choice!

 

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GolfWRXers put the Full Swing KIT’s accuracy to the test

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Last month, four GolfWRX forum members traveled to The Grand Golf Club at the Fairmont Grand Del Mar in San Diego, California, to test the Full Swing KIT launch monitor and to see how it stacks up against other launch monitors. If you’re not familiar with the Full Swing KIT, development began when Tiger Woods requested a launch monitor he could trust on the range as much as he trusted his Full Swing simulator in his own home. Later, the KIT earned Tiger’s seal of approval and has been seen with him at every tournament he’s played in since its release.

Check out the video below to see if the KIT can earn the seal of approval from our four WRXers — @zap311, @double or triple?, @hatrick11, and @SwingBlues — just like it did from Tiger Woods himself.

GolfWRX members on the KIT’s accuracy

zap311: “The Full Swing team seems obsessed with accuracy when it comes to the KIT – The team talked about how this product officially shipped about 18 months ago and they are already on firmware release #20. They said they are regularly releasing updates (overnight via WiFi) to continuously improve accuracy and performance. That is pretty awesome and it’s nice to hear that they are not a company that “ships it” and moves to the next thing. I think they are on the right track since I saw virtually no differences in the data when testing vs. GCQuad and Trackman today.”

double or triple?: “In some cases the difference was less than half a degree on launch and less than 50 rpms on spin.”

hatrick11: “The differences were statistically nonexistent. I think it’s hard to believe for a lot of people when you think about the huge price disparity, but I can’t state enough how close the Full Swing was to trackman every single time, for each of us.”

“Outside, the data is just really really accurate. I know my numbers and know this particular range very well and the KIT was spot on all day. I also had some very variable quality golf balls in the bucket I hit and there was really only one spin rate in the whole session that had me raising my eyebrows at all.”

SwingBlues: “The GolfWRX Full Swing/WRX Experience showed Full Swing KIT produce numbers the same as the GC Quad (GC4) and the Trackman4. Dollar wise, both LMs are easily north of KIT, so this is HUGE to stand up there with the bigger boys on the Podium. For me, it seems more “apples to apples” to compare KIT to GC3. My own testing validates what we saw at the Experience. It shows critical data points like spin, carry, ball speeds are dead on or almost dead on for 40 yards and up on both GC3 and KIT.”

More on the Full Swing KIT

zap311: “The versatility of viewing data is impressive – Depending on usage, everyone has different preferences for viewing data. You have on-device, phone, tablet, monitor, smartwatch, or audio/headphones. I’m pleased to say that Full Swing covers all of these. You can use the app on iOS devices (they said Android is planned for the future). This includes viewing your last shot on the Apple Watch with a few options and turning on audio playback of your preferred metrics following each shot. I’ll post screenshots of this later. You can also choose between 4 data points or 1 data point on the device itself. It was easy to use the app to customize the top 4. For example, I was able to quickly change from launch angle on irons to swing path on driver.

“The KIT was very easy to use – Once you spend a few minutes learning the app and settings, it is very simple to select a club, line up the target line, and fire away. You don’t have to use a level or a laser to line up. KIT uses the built-in camera to tell you where to line up within the app or on-device screen. I was also able to boot up the KIT in less than a minute and drop it down on the tee box for our on-course trial today. Because of this simplicity, I can see it being more practical to bring to the course…

“The Full Swing team really thought through usability for the KIT. You can see up to four data points on the device’s OLED screen. You can see all 16 data points on your iPhone/iPad along with a video replay of the shot, you can view one primary metric from your Apple Watch, and you can enable audio playback for any of the 16 data points. For me, this was a dream as a full iOS user. One other feature I like is that you can star a particular shot to save it. You can also send shot data + the video recording to your coach if you want.”

double or triple?: “I was able to meet the teaching pro at the range I’m using for testing – PGA teacher/member Ryan Kolk. He and his team have 4 units amongst themselves and use them both personally and with their students during lessons. Ryan spent time dialing in his knowledge of the range balls vs proV1x (gamer) to better understand the FSK and he believes the consistency is there with the FSK and within trackman and GC/Foresight models. His preference is to use FSK while testing shafts and new product before using them in his personal playing bag which as a GolfWRX member is 100% appreciated. For his better students, he believes the information like Face to Path and Club Path that FullSwing Kit offers is great to help them understand what their swing is doing and use that information to better themselves.”

hatrick11: “It’s nice to know I can get super useful practice sessions in at my house, and can do in in ~20 min stints; with two little kids at home I can’t just go out for frequent or lengthy range sessions, so this is super valuable and I think will help me keep my game from degrading and allow me to spend my limited free time enjoying the occasional round with friends. In particular with the KIT, as opposed to the cheaper monitors or the other “mid tiers” like GC3, seeing path and face-to-path data is the key item that makes my practice sessions useful…when I am grooving it my path is almost always between 0-2* out to in, with face control being the main thing I need to work on. When my game goes sideways I start coming more in to out, and combined with face consistency being an ongoing issue, that brings the bad left miss into play. Previously I have struggled getting real use out of net practice, because the feels don’t always match reality. This data and video evidence really helps keep me honest, so it was great to see that I was eventually able to get that piece dialed in with KIT.”

SwingBlues: “One feature I am really starting to like is how easy to see the video of each shot. My buddy was not hitting it well, we went to the video and we could see the takeway was too far to the outside.”

“Using the app, it will display all 16 data points. Below is an example of one of my iron shots. Pretty impressive data captured by KIT. On KIT itself, the launch monitor display can be configured to show a single data point, or it can show a grid of 4 data points where the golfer choose which ones to display!”

Head over to the thread for more comments, reviews, and future updates as our members continue to test the Full Swing KIT. Don’t forget to become a member today for future opportunities like this, plus product member testing and giveaways!

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Whats in the Bag

Jay Giannetto WITB 2023 (July)

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Driver: Titleist TSR2 (9 degrees)
Shaft: Mitsubishi Tensei AV Raw Blue 65 TX

3-wood: Titleist TSR3 (15 degrees)
Shaft: Mitsubishi Tensei AV Blue 65 TX

Irons: Titleist U505 (3), Titleist T100 (4-PW)
Shafts: Graphite Design Tour AD DI Hybrid 85 (3), KBS Tour C-Taper 125 S+ (4-PW)

Wedges: Titleist Vokey Design SM8 (56, 60-04L)
Shafts: KBS $-Taper 120

Putter: Scotty Cameron Tour Type SSS Masterful+, Scotty Cameron Super Select Newport 2

Grip: Golf Pride MCC Plus4 Align

More photos of Jay Giannetto’s what’s in the bag in the forums.

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