The Surprise Second Hand Club That Sells Out Almost Instantly

It’s a club that has become a lot more popular on tour over the last couple of years. Normally when this happens, the trend filters its way into the amateur game. This, it would appear, is exactly what has started to happen. The club we’re talking about is the 7-wood and they’re in very high demand.

Rising star of European golf Ludvig Åberg is the latest player to taste success with this particular club, powered to victory at the Genesis Invitational by his 21° TaylorMade Stealth 2 fairway wood.

“I feel like I can hit it a lot of different ways, it's very versatile. I can hit it high, hit it low, turn it over, cut it. So I would say I like that one,” Åberg said at the start of the 2025 season at Torrey Pines. “I felt like it was a good week to try it out because there's some long par 3s, long par 4s. Almost if you get a half decent amount of rough you can sort of hit it out there. I'm not going to leave it out of the bag anytime soon.”

Åberg isn't the only high profile player employing a 7-wood in his bag. Former Open Champion Cam Smith can often be seen with a Titleist TS2 7-wood in the bag and recent PGA Tour winner Brian Campbell claimed victory at the Mexico Open with a Ping G430 Max 7-wood.

What is also interesting that many players are choosing old clubs on tour in this area of the bag, which keeps people like Jamie Stephen, Edinburgh store manager at golfclubs4cash, Europe's biggest retailer of second hand clubs, very busy.

“We don’t keep hold of them for too long, they are just going so quickly,” Stephen says of the 7-wood craze. “We can’t seem to get enough of them in right now. They’re a bit of a dark horse.”

7-wood versus hybrid

So, what makes the 7-wood such a valued weapon? Mostly, it’s the stopping power. It’s a club that still offers plenty of distance, but on top of this, because of its high launch, it tends to land more softly than a hybrid or long iron which can be very useful when the greens are firm or simply attacking a pin from distance.

With a much deeper and lower center of gravity, the ball can launch much higher and reach a higher peak. As a result, the descent angle is a lot steeper. In a recent test that we carried out, peak height was 6.5 yards greater with a 7-wood compared to a hybrid of the same static loft, which is quite significant.

This is not to say the much-loved hybrid is in any danger of becoming obsolete. A hybrid can more versatile if the lie isn’t perfect - sitting a bit down in the rough, for example. In such cases, a shallower head will have better turf interaction than a 7-wood, which is more likely to get snagged up in longer grass.

Another benefit of hybrids is that they’ll tend to run out a little further. Off the tee, it will spin and launch a little lower, so that extra bit of distance will be preferable for a lot of golfers. However, there’s nothing to stop you putting both in the bag, which is exactly what a lot of club golfers appear to be doing.

It’s a decent fairway finder, too. Club players might find that the extra backspin leaves them too far back on some holes, but being on the short stuff, albeit further away from the hole, is a lot better than being closer but in thick rough.

Should you consider adding a 7-wood to your line-up? Perhaps there has been a stigma attached to this type of club in the past - that it’s just for high handicap players and senior golfers. Cam Smith, Tyrrell Hatton and Joaquin Niemann (all 7-wood users) would disagree, as would former World No.1 Dustin Johnson, who won the Masters with a 21° TaylorMade SIM Max 7-wood.

“It used to all be about whether you could hit a 2-iron or 3-iron, then the hybrids came along and made the game easier,” adds golfclubs4cash's Stephen. “Now we have this rising demand for 7-woods - they’ve become very popular.”

So the answer is yes, you probably should. At the very least, it’s worth having a hit with one. Be quick, though, as they appear to be selling like hot cakes. Try one for yourself from golfclubs4cash but be quick - they won't be in stock for long!