More and more elite golfers are relying on 7-woods and high-lofted fairway woods to handle the challenges of Augusta National.
Max Homa’s tee shot on the fourth hole Friday at Augusta National sailed 222 yards in the bright blue sky, curved slightly to the right, and then landed softly and released about 3 or 4 feet on the green. Splitting the bunkers and stopping just 11 feet from the hole, it set up a birdie chance that Homa desperately needed.
Homa and his playing partners – tournament leader Justin Rose and J.J. Spaun – all hit the same club off the tee on that hole: a 7-wood.
This year, 29 of the 95 golfers who started the week at the 2025 Masters carried a 7-wood on Thursday and Friday, a figure that is up from 21 in play at the 2024 Masters.
The typical 7-wood has either 20 or 21 degrees of loft, which fits between a 3-iron and a 4-iron in most better-player sets. Most 4-hybrid clubs have a similar loft, but fairway woods tend to have a lower center of gravity than irons and hybrids, which encourages a higher launch angle with the same loft. Fairway woods are also often built with graphite shafts and to a longer finished length than a similarly-lofted iron or hybrid, so players can swing them faster. That combination of a faster swing, lower center of gravity location and more forgiveness can make 7-woods compelling for any player.
TaylorMade senior tour manager Todd Chew told Golfweek recently, “In the 90s and early-2000s, (pros) were not even playing 5-woods because they would spin up in the air, and if it got windy at all, it was just not useful for them.”
But as golf balls changed and players became more open-minded about their gear, a shift took place. “The way the golf ball spins now, and the way we’ve designed clubs to create low spin … the ball spins less, the head spins less, everything’s been low spin. So, you can use more loft now without overspinning and ballooning into the air.”
Having a forest of headcovers in your bag used to draw snickers and smirks from low-handicap players, and for years, there was a stigma that high-lofted fairway woods were only for recreational golfers who struggled to hit long irons, but even some of the most elite ballstrikers on the PGA Tour, like Ludvig Aberg, Sam Burns, Patrick Cantlay, Wyndham Clark and Sepp Straka routinely carry a 7-wood these days.
Adam Scott, the winner of the 2013 Masters, is among the stars on the PGA Tour who routinely carry a 7-wood, but this year at the Masters, he took it out and went one step further. Scott added a 9-wood with 24 degrees of loft to his bag, and he wasn’t alone. Sahith Theegala, Tommy Fleetwood and Dustin Johnson also carried 9-woods.
It is doubtful that 7-woods will become as common as dogwoods or azaleas at Augusta National, but they certainly appear to be here to stay at the Masters.
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