Why You Keep Topping Fairway Woods (It's Not What You Think)

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Transcript Summary-

“This week I really want to help you hit your hybrids and fairway woods so much better. I know these can be some of the trickiest clubs in the bag—you’re often hitting them off the ground, and they’re the longest shafts you’ll swing outside of your driver. So I want to simplify things by sharing two key things I give to my students: one is a simple setup adjustment, and the other is a brilliant drill you can take straight to the golf course to improve your strike and add some effortless power. 

Now, before we dive in—if this is your first lesson with me, consider subscribing. I release free lessons like this every week, and everything I cover is always included in a downloadable practice guide linked below. 

Let’s start with a common mistake I see—many golfers try to treat their fairway wood like a driver, trying to help the ball into the air. But whenever the ball is on the ground, we actually want to strike slightly down on it. That helps ensure we hit the ball before the ground, improving both consistency and distance. 

The low point of your swing is usually around your lead shoulder, so placing the ball slightly behind that point helps guarantee ball-first contact. The catch? When you move the ball back in your stance, you’re also de-lofting the club. That’s fine if you have lots of speed, but if you’re using a 3-wood and don’t generate enough speed, the ball won’t launch high enough—even with a solid strike. 

So my advice: make sure you’re using enough loft. Personally, I carry a trusty 7-wood—it’s incredibly versatile and much easier to launch. I even put my dad into a 9-wood because it gave him the loft he needed to hit down on the ball and still see it get up into the air. 

Now onto the drill. This is one you can take directly to the golf course. I gave this to my student Max, and it helped him feel what a proper strike really is. I told him: just try and throw the front edge of the club into the ground opposite your trail foot. What you’ll likely find—like Max did—is that you’re used to striking with the back edge, which leads to topping or thinning the ball. 

Once you’ve felt what it’s like to get that front edge brushing the turf, start to move the strike point closer to where the ball would be. You’ll quickly see your body naturally adjust to support that motion. Then, simply blend that into your full swing. Let the club swing freely—don’t try to force it—and focus on which part of the club is brushing the ground, and where that contact is happening. 

As you practice this, just take note: if you’re on a slope or awkward lie, like I was during the shot in this video, make natural adjustments—like gripping down slightly—to accommodate that lie. And always check that your ball position and loft are working with you, not against you. 

So to sum up: use enough loft—don’t be afraid of 5-woods, 7-woods or even 9-woods. Get your weight naturally forward, strike slightly down on the ball, and use that drill to feel the correct contact. That’s how you start hitting those hybrids and fairway woods with confidence. 

If you enjoyed this lesson, give it a thumbs up and share it with a friend who could use some help off the fairway. And if you’d like to improve your driver as well, check out the video linked here. Don’t forget to subscribe and download your free practice guide below. I’ll see you next week—have a wonderful golfing!”

Full Transcript-  So this week I'd really love to help you hit your hybrids and fairwoods so much better i do appreciate that these aren't easy clubs to hit the longest clubs you have in the bag what you're hitting off the fairway with so they can be tricky but what I want to do is I want to share with you just two things that I share with my students one revolves around making sure you've got the correct setup every single time and the other is a really great drill you can take straight to the golf course that can stop you topping it thinning it and what it does is it helps to guarantee strike and really ramp up that distance so you can get much closer to those power fives or certainly onto those power files in two before I do though look if you're new to the channel your first lesson of mine please consider subscribing i leave videos just like this one every single week to try and help you improve your game plus you never have to remember a thing everything we discuss here I'll put into a free downloadable practice practice guide in the description box below so before we get into the drill that you can take to the course let's deal with one major misconception with fairway woods a lot of times you know certainly Max was the case when he came and see me that he was setting up to a fairwood thinking it was a little bit like a driver and he wanted to almost try and hit up on the ball mainly because he wasn't getting the ball up in the air but whenever a ball is on the ground I want you to think I've got to find a way to hit slightly down on it no matter what club you're using the reason being if we can avoid any ground behind the golf ball that's really important we stop really doing we want to strike that ball first so like any golf swing there's a low point to your rack which is roughly um in line with your lead shoulder here so if you put a ball anywhere back of that like this so this is my ultimately kind of my low point if my ball is back of that it means I'm going to hit hopefully the ball first then the ground and what that does is it gives me a real margin of error and almost guarantees strike however what it also does you'll notice here if I in a sense move the ball back in my stance here I'm also look delofting this golf club now this is a problem for most golfers because when you hit a freewood for instance which has 15 degrees of loft on if you don't have club head speed and we've almost kind of delofted it here so we've taken some of that loft off now the problem is when you start to strike down on this golf ball that 15° might start to become maybe 10 and if you don't have the club head speed you'll never get it up in the air so what I'll generally say to many of my students is make sure make sure that you're using enough loft so I've got look threewood here but I look in my bag I've actually got look a trusty sevenwood and I love this because what it does is it means it's versatile it gives me the option if I wanted to now to help guarantee strike i can move the ball back a good club width here i could get my body forward and strike down on this golf ball and guarantee strike because even though I'm coming down I've got 20 degrees of loft to play with with this sevenwood that makes a massive difference so before we go into obviously the drill it's really important to understand like based on your club head speed make sure you've got enough loft on your uh 3-wood 5wood or sevenwood and maybe even like with my dad I got him into a ninewood why because again it means it can encourage you to hit down on the golf ball and the ball will still go up in the air if my dad was using a 3-wood and he was coming down on it as he should do the ball won't go up in the air and before you know it he's falling back into these kind of leaning back here topping the golf ball trying to get the ball up in the air now let's get stuck into the drill so the drill you can take straight to the golf course it's going to help you with your ball strike and it will really help you generate some effortless power too so with Max who I gave this drill to I said "Look," he now understood that he had to slightly down on the fairway but he didn't know how to feel it so this is where the drill comes in so when you make a swing I said to him "Max what I want you to do is I want you to throw the club down opposite your right foot for a second so throw it into the ground like feel like you're going to throw the the leading edge the front section of this golf club here into the ground." Now when he did this first of all he did this and what he was doing he was throwing without realizing the back edge he struggled to get this front section hitting the ground why because unconsciously to him he'd been training himself like a lot of students I see to almost get the ball up in the air with his fairywood yeah didn't feel right for him to do this motion now this is important this is why he was topping it right so I said "Look just keep going and keep going till you start feeling look feeling the leading edge just being thrown into the ground behind you." Now you've done that I want you to get a that similar feeling much closer to where the ball's going to be yeah so as he's doing this he's like "Okay you don't have to do big swings to start with just what would you have to do?" And he's like "First of all he's trying to reach." I said "It's not going to work what would your body need to do that's right look how much I'm moving having to There we go so it's just an inch closer now we're getting closer now we're getting closer right it makes sense i'm moving forward to create that same feeling here look as I had here now we needed to kind of make it into a much more of a normal swing so I said "Right I want you now to make the club and feel the weight of the club swinging start with that first and as you're swinging I want you to throw the club down behind and gradually look there you go i'm have There we go that's the feeling i can feel the front section of that golf club just bruising the ground that would be look the back section you probably see my body almost leaning back so there that's the top there there we go so he's now got a free flowing club and he's paying attention now throughout this process he would jump in and out and start over trying really hard he would start to almost force it down i said "No don't force it this is this is a sensory experience it's a feeling keep the club swinging and just paying attention to what part of that club is hitting the ground then go to the golf ball you've got that sensation get the ball position look you could at least a ball inside your lead heel you could even be I've got seven i could even move it a club width inside because I've got loft to play with to help guarantee strike and then all we're doing is the same type of principles here was making that club swing freely and imagine that same feeling we had back here now much closer to the golf ball actually just before I hit this shot I want you to I just noticed myself going down the grip slightly very naturally instinctively the ball is above my stance here i'm on a slope like this so I've done this i'm naturally paying attention to it you might not do this on a regular basis to take in into consideration the slope of the fairway too so get myself set here i've got my setup in place ball positions back let's get back into this nice and

comfortable just like that okay beautiful strike moved it forward i've got 324 yards to go here and that's going to give me a great opportunity to get up and down uh for the next one now Max asked me a very very good question he said "How do I take this to the golf course Danny i can't obviously be taking chunks out the fairway when I'm playing." So it's just a feeling you need to start to create so do some do some swings and when you do these lovely kind of flowing swings pay attention to two things one where is this club landing relative to your feet and how is it landing which part of the club is striking the ground if it's anywhere close to the back part then we're going to be in trouble we want to get nice this low section of this sole plate just bruising that ground and in the right spot so as I'm swinging here I'm paying attention to what part of the club is striking that ground that's really really important now when he did this initially like a lot of students he was trying to force it don't do that that's just overthinking pay attention and swing the club feel the weight of the club and then notice what part look is striking the ground i'll just hit a gentle one here you walk into the shot here nice and simply here look I've got that sensation and I just hit away so you take that sensation there and then you just go with it so understand really really important make sure please make sure you've got enough loft on your fairway woods seven woods are a brilliant addition they will go much further sometimes than threewoods used correctly okay once you've done that just get that sensation of your weight needs to be naturally forward we want to get that gentle bit of compression with with fairy woods here to guarantee the strike and that is as simple as that i hope you enjoyed the video if you did give it a thumbs up and share this fairwood video with a friend who you know needs a little bit help off the fairways um if you love videos like this one and you'd like to some help with your driver please go and check this video out right here and of course look if you're new to the channel it's one of the first lessons of mine press that subscribe button right down here i'll put a free downloadable practice guide in the description box below but until next week have a wonderful golfing.