- 4 minutes ago
When the driver is misbehaving, golfers often turn to the three wood in attempt to gain more control over accuracy and find more fairways. But does the data prove that this strategy is correct and does the trade off in distance make it worthwhile? That's what Dan Parker attempts to unpack in this video, with the help of shot data from real golfers provided by Arccos Golf.
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00:00Now for many golfers when the driver is misbehaving or you need to hit a tight fairway
00:04opting for the three wood seems like the most sensible option. A little bit more loft and that
00:09smaller head should give you more control to hit that fairway. That's the theory anyway but does
00:14it play out in reality? Well I've got the data that might prove it all wrong.
00:22So all of the data I'm going to be referencing in this video comes from Arcos Golf and their
00:27vast bank of real shots from real golfers on real golf courses. So far they've logged over 750
00:35million shots. So this is some really interesting data that we can dive into to look at whether that
00:41driver is more accurate or less accurate than the three wood. Now if you've been using Arcos Golf over
00:47the last couple of years then your driver shots and your three wood shots will be included in the
00:51data we're using today and if you want to use Arcos Golf for yourself I've put some handy links down
00:56in
00:56the description where you can find the best price in your location for a set of smart sensors.
01:01So let's start with the headline news from this data then and asking ourselves the question are
01:06you more likely to hit the fairway with a three wood than with a driver? Now in short the answer
01:12is yes
01:12but the results are nowhere near as resounding as you might think. So in fact from from handicaps
01:19ranging from zero all the way up to 20 you are less than one percent more likely to hit the
01:25fairway with
01:25your three wood than with your driver. Less than one percent. Now I think that's quite shocking if
01:29I'd asked you that question before we had a look at this data I think you might have said something
01:33like 15 20 25 percent I don't know but I think it'd be a lot more than one. Now when
01:39we're thinking
01:39about this as well so you're gonna be one percent more accurate but according to the data your average
01:43loss of distance with three wood to driver is 12 yards. Now that doesn't really seem like a worthy
01:49trade-off to me so let's delve down a little bit deeper into this data and go handicap by handicap
01:54to see
01:54how they perform with driver and three wood. So let's start this deeper dive by looking at scratch
02:03golfers to five index handicappers now we're going to take a look at the percentage of fairways hit
02:08with each club with driver and three wood how far each club averages for distance give us an idea of
02:13what that trade-off is as well as looking at a really interesting stat that archives have given us
02:18looking at the percentage of shots that finish under 30 yards from the center of the fairway so this is
02:24like you know not a fairway hit but we're less than 30 yards from the center so it might be
02:28first cut
02:29it might be rough depending on how wide the hole is but I think it's a really interesting stat
02:32to bear in mind a bit more nuance to it. So starting with a scratch golfer then they find the
02:38fairway
02:38just 2.4 percent more of the time with the three wood than they do with the driver and they
02:44average 15
02:45yards less with the high lofted three wood as you might expect. There is quite a big percentage change
02:51with scratch golfers when we're looking at that category of less than 30 yards from the center of
02:55the fairway indeed scratch golfers are missing that so that 30 yard distance just less than four percent
03:01of the time with the three wood so there's a little bit of a gain there again it's only marginal
03:05at four
03:05percent and that 15 yards of distance you're giving up I don't think quite warrants it it's an interesting
03:10thing to think anyway if we look at a five handicapper that dispersion is even smaller a five
03:16handicap will hit the fairway 1.3 percent more of the time with their three wood and this rises to
03:223.3 percent of the time for those shots under 30 yards in the center of the fairway so again
03:27really
03:27not a big difference here and much like that scratch golfer a five indexer is sacrificing 14 yards when
03:34hitting their three wood instead of their driver. So let's move on to 10 to 15 index handicap golfers now
03:43and while it might be expected that the performance and the percentage of fairways hit with three woods
03:48might go up a little bit with these higher index golfers the opposite is actually true so if we look
03:53at a 10 index golfer they are only 0.7 percent more likely to hit the fairway with their three
03:59wood
03:59which is you know that's barely anything even more amazingly I think here a 15 handicapper is more
04:06likely to miss the fairway with their three wood than with their driver so we're now flipping it on its
04:12head
04:12entirely here now admittedly that's only by 0.3 percent so it's not a lot but it's still interesting
04:18to note I think that the the idea that the three wood is a safety club is not the case
04:23especially
04:24for 15 handicap golfers now as was the case with our scratch and five index handicapper we're losing
04:29a fair chunk of yardage as well so for that 10 handicapper the loss of distance averages at 13 yards
04:34and for the 15 handicapper we're losing 11 yards so I'm going to stop with the 15 indexer there and
04:39just say
04:41to hit the fairway less often you're also sacrificing 11 yards so that myth that myth I guess we're
04:46proving now that three wood is a safe club for 15 handicaps in particular definitely isn't true
04:55so finally then let's look at the 20 index golfer perhaps a more common index perhaps watching at
05:00home now you're a 20 indexer let's see how you're getting on with this three wood versus driver and
05:04again the differences are minuscule for a 20 index golfer they're going to hit the fairway 0.8 percent
05:11of the time more with that three wood so listen really not a lot interesting the the difference
05:17in distance is a little bit less so you're only sacrificing 10 yards as a 20 handicapper whereas
05:22we were at about 15 yards of the scratch golfer so you can see the difference in the quality of
05:27striking I guess there but again for 0.8 percent more fairways that sacrifice 10 yards I think
05:32especially a 20 handicapper it's quite a lot so what happens when we put all of this together
05:37then let's bring all the handicaps back together again and give ourselves an average of all golfers
05:41out there from this Arcos set of data well as you can see if we put everybody together you're more
05:47likely to hit the fairway with a three wood 0.9 percent of the time so less than one percent
05:54with your
05:54driver and that average distance drop off with all handicaps was around 12 or 13 yards now that is
06:00probably a different iron in the bag approach wise isn't it a seven over an eight iron we should
06:05have more control over so we're thinking about is that distance trade-off worth it not a lot more
06:11accuracy if we contextualize this and say that there are 14 chances per round to hit a fairway that's
06:19assuming that most golf courses have four par threes that equates to finding one extra fairway every eight
06:26rounds and that's that 12 yards you're giving up on every shot while we're here then let's take a look
06:33at my data for this because i've been using Arcos now for a couple of years i've got three and
06:37a
06:37half thousand shots logged on here now so i thought we'd be interested to compare my data with that of
06:42the the larger group that we're doing here and i fall very much into type about what we've been
06:46talking about here so with my drive i hit the fairway a whopping and eye watering 40 of the time
06:52not
06:53great i know i'll work on it but i average 256 yards off the tee so there's my accuracy my
06:58distance
06:59now with my three wood i average 241 yards so there's that drop off of 15 yards we were seeing
07:05for some of the lower index golfers but only the fairway 34 of the time so the the quote unquote
07:11safer club when i want to try and find a fairway isn't my three wood because i'm not only i'm
07:16missing
07:16it more than my driver but i'm 15 yards worse off now it's really something interesting to think about
07:22here i was really interested to see mine versus the group data on here and it would actually make
07:27a lot more sense for me i was thinking about doing the safer option is to pull the hybrid out
07:31my bag
07:31now i average 212 yards with this club so it's obviously losing a lot but i hit the fairway 45
07:39of the time still still not a lot really is that i need to work on my fairies and regulation
07:43but
07:45if i'm on a tee and i'm like dan i need to hit a fairway here
07:49the three wood isn't the club as though i might have thought before it would be the hybrid or even
07:54a five iron if a fairway is that important the drop up in distance is huge but that real safe
07:59club
08:00is much lower down the bag than the three wood so some final thoughts then on what i think has
08:05been
08:05a really interesting dive into this part of the bag and i think we can really walk away from this
08:10video
08:10with some interesting course management skills next time you're on the course now there's no denying that
08:15across the board the three wood technically is more accurate and you are going to find more fairways
08:21but the results are so marginal as we saw and if you're a 15 index golfer and me you're missing
08:27more
08:28often with your free with than the driver and you're sacrificing all that yardage now there's a few
08:33reasons why this might be the case you know there's a bit of a bias while getting fitted for your
08:37driver
08:37so maybe you feel more comfortable over it than your than your fairway would and that bigger head might
08:42inspire a bit more confidence but regardless of the reason as to why the driver isn't as wayward
08:47as the three as we thought i think it's worth just sitting back and thinking if i you know my
08:52fairway
08:52finder my safe club let's drop that a little bit further down the bag next time whether it's a five
08:57wood seven wood i'd move down to my four hybrid now that's the next thing i'm going to do when
09:01i'm
09:02ready to find a fairway drop down to that four hybrid even a five iron a seven iron i don't
09:06care
09:06whatever you need to find the fairway i think we've busted the myth that three wood is safer
09:11than driver that's for sure well i hope you've enjoyed this video in this deep dive into the
09:16specific part of the game as i said at the top we've got access to our cost is vast bank
09:21of data
09:22750 million shots from real golfers on real golf courses so if there's anything you want to see me
09:27dive into like this for specific handicap indexes or for shots on specific parts of the golf course
09:33let me know down in the comments i'd love to hear from you and put a video together
09:37looking at that but for now thank you so much for joining me i'll see you next time
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