Fitting Tour Players With TPT Red Range Fairway Wood Shafts

Tour players aren’t like normal golfers, and in this article we’re going to discuss what we’ve learned about fitting tour players for the all-new TPT Red Range Fairway Wood Shafts.

While slow-swing-speed golfers generally need help hitting their fairway woods higher to make them more effective on all shots, tour players and other accomplished golfers often look to create a very specific result with their fairway woods — and especially their 3 wood.

These better golfers tend to fall into one of two categories:

• Hitting A 3 Wood As Far As Possible
• Hitting A 3 Wood A Specific Distance

We’re going to discuss these two categories in this article, explaining how TPT Red Range Fairway Woods help golfers create the best possible performance for each type of golfer.

Please Note: You don’t need to be a tour player to learn something from this article. It also applies to any accomplished golfers with a moderate or high swing speed.

Hitting A 3 Wood As Far As Possible

Hitting a 3 wood as far as possible is the goal for most golfers, but it’s actually something a minority of tour players are looking to achieve. But there are tour players that need to maximize the distance they hit their fairway woods, so let’s discuss this case.

Tour players compete on some of the longest golf courses in the world, so distance with any club is always a concern. Some long-hitters on tour feel more confident with a 3 wood off the tee, especially if they need to draw their tee shot, so it makes sense for them to maximize the total distance their 3 wood goes in order to minimize the distance loss they might experience compared to competitors who are more comfortable hitting drivers.

Korn Ferry Tour player Taylor Montgomery plays a TPT 14 Lo Driver Shaft and 14 Lo Fairway Wood Shaft.

Think of major champions Henrik Stenson and Phil Mickelson, who are both famous for long tee shots with 3 woods and have won many tournaments hitting 3 woods almost exclusively off the tee.

For tour players who are below average in distance, choosing a 3 wood that goes as far as possible is also a good solution because it gives them access to more par-4 and par-5 holes. While TPT Driver and Fairway Wood shafts are different — the Red Range Driver shafts are optimized for drivers and the Red Range Fairway Wood shafts are optimized for fairway woods — the automated manufacturing process we use called Continuous Fiber allows these two shafts to feel exactly the same, which improves consistency and confidence.

To help golfers who want to hit their 3 wood as far as possible add a little more swing speed, we generally see them playing fairway woods that are longer in length — somewhere between 43 and 43.5 inches.

Hitting A 3 Wood A Specific Distance

Paul Barjon and Taylor Montgomery are currently two of the top players on the Korn Ferry Tour. They’re long and straight drivers of the ball, and both players are using a TPT Red Range Fairway Wood shaft to carry their 3 wood a specific distance — that is, about 20-30 yards shorter than their driver and about 20-30 yards longer than their hybrid or longest iron.

Compared to golfers who want to hit their 3 wood as far as possible, golfers who want to hit their 3 wood a specific distance aim for a higher trajectory to give them more control over how the ball reacts when it hits the ground.

In a fitting for a TPT Red Range Fairway Wood shaft, the best thing to do is to start with the same model of driver and fairway wood shaft to take advantage of their identical feel regardless of your goals. This is because TPT Red Range Fairway Wood shafts are by nature higher-launching than driver shafts, making them far more optimized for fairway wood shots than other shafts.

Korn Ferry Tour player Paul Barjon plays a TPT 14 Lo Driver Shaft and 14 Lo Fairway Wood Shaft.

Barjon currently plays the TPT Red Range 14 Lo Driver shaft and a 14 Lo Fairway wood shaft. Montgomery is playing the same two shafts — a 14 Lo Driver Shaft and a 14 Lo Fairway Wood Shaft. To help them fine-tune their carry distances, they shorten the length of their fairway wood shaft until they find the ideal carry distance.

And in general, golfers looking to fly their fairway woods a specific distance tend to play their 3 woods at a slightly shorter length to maximize control — usually between 42.5 and 43 inches.

If you have any questions for us, send us a message on our social channels (@tptgolf) or email info@shop.tptgolf.com.