Should you use the same shaft for your driver and fairway woods?

Finding the shaft profile for your driver is hard enough. When you find someone you love with a driver head that works for your swing, it’s like you’re not stuck. Finding the perfect combination of fairway woods, however, can sometimes feel impossible. I don’t actually have a 3-wood in the bag because I’ve found it hard to find the “perfect” one for me. Much of that lack of confidence is due to differences in race. I feel invincible with the driver, but as soon as you tell me to hit the fairway wood off the turf, I’m going to fall.

As I tried harder with trying to find the right 3 wood for my game, my shaft choices were all over the place. But one thing, especially in the 5-wood category, that I really like, is that the profile needs to be different than my driver shaft. With my driver, I hit the ball a lot, but with fairway woods I like to be able to squeeze the ball and even take a small divot. The difference in those two curves can be quite large, and that’s what causes the need for a different shaft profile.

I made videos on my Instagram before talking about comparing the profile of the shaft to the unique swing of the player, which also means that you make sure that every combination of head and shaft needs to work well. However, even the same player can have different swings across the bag. The shaft profile in your driver may not match the shaft profile you need to play in other areas of the bag.

For me, and most players on the PGA Tour, it’s easy to pair my driver with the lower launch portion and my fairway woods with the higher launch portion. For the driver I like to use something like the Mitsubishi Diamana WB or the Tensei 1k Pro White to help with the powerful swing from the top, which I lean on to hit the ball. I want the tip part to be a little more stable so it doesn’t give any extra kick on impact. Since I already provide a lot of loft naturally with my swing, I don’t want the shaft tip to increase that even more.

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For a fairway wood, I like something soft. I’ll end up getting my attack angle neutral, or going a little lower on the ball with the fairway woods, and my swing mechanics will change a little. Getting closer to the swing of the iron, where I also have a shaft profile with a slightly stiffer handle section and a softer tip section. Having a softer tip section with something like Tensei 1k Pro Red or Diamana RB helps you feel more confident getting off the ball and pressing it down. This helps with good launch and spin control, and I’ve noticed it also increases speed in the fairway woods for me compared to a stiffer tip profile.

Who SHOULD play the same profile at both clubs?

Of course it all comes down to balance. Many top players play the same shafts in their driver and fairway woods. The LPGA’s Hannah Green is on a strong run this season sitting in second place on the LPGA points list after two wins and a recent top-10 finish in the first major of the year. He plays a Mitsubishi Diamana RB in both his driver and fairway wood; which increases the weight by one class heavier in his fairway wood compared to the driver.

Hannah has a very similar swing to her driver and 3-wood, so it’s very easy to stay in sync with the same feel by sticking to the same shaft. Any player at any skill level who delivers the club the same way will likely feel comfortable with the same shaft profile on each club. I also tend to see a tendency for players at different ends of the speed spectrum to fall into the same profile. Players, like Xander or Matt Fitzpatrick, who are very powerful and really need help controlling the club head tend to stick to tighter profiles throughout the bag. The same can be said for players on the fast-swinging side. These players, like Hannah Green, tend to stick to the same swing no matter what part of the bag they are in, and having the same profile helps generate more launch and ball speed at that level of swing speed.

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In the middle there are players at any speed who have more tempo in their swing, and they are not in line with their speed. These are players who tend to go for smooth hard profiles on the driver, like the Diamana WB, but soft profiles on their fairways. They will generally rip the driver more from the top, but stay a little smoother in transition with their fairway woods. These are the players who will like to switch to something like the Diamana BB or Tensei 1k Pro Blue (like Cam Young) for their high end wood options.

As always if you want to make a call to find the right combination of heads and shafts for your bag, visit your local True Spec for a fitting.

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