Faults:

Your fairway wood striking is inconsistent

You catch wood shots on the bottom of the club

Fix: Fairway wood technique explained

Over the years one of Tiger Woods’ great strengths has been his ability to strike fairway woods so sweetly and accurately. This comes from a technically, very sound upper-body turn during the downswing. This one technical key allows him to strike his fairway woods purely every time with the perfect shallow angle of attack that you are looking for.

Firstly, make sure that your ball position is correct. With your fairway woods in hand, you should be looking to ‘cover’ the ball. This means ensuring that your sternum is over the ball at impact. Many golfers have a tendency to lift their upper body during the downswing, but this will destroy the consistency of your strikes. You need to turn on to the ball and the club will have a shallow, descending angle of attack (as shown here by the alignment stick).

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A great drill that forces you to do the right thing is to hit some shots off a downslope. This forces you to stay down over the ball to find a good strike, keeping your sternum in the right position and allowing you to cover the ball as the best strikers in the world do. It works brilliantly to groove the correct action, and will prove to you that you don’t have to lean back through impact to get the ball up into the air. Instead, as long as you swing with enough speed and find a clean strike, the ball flight will take care of itself.

Whether you use your fairway woods regularly or not, understanding the fairway wood technique is absolutely essential and will help transform this area of your game forever.