It's all well and good hitting powerful drives or flushing your fairway wood off the tee when conditions are calm, but the ability to control your ball flight when necessary is just as valuable. Enter... the fairway finder!
There are plenty of scenarios on the course that call for a tough golf shot to be executed in order to protect your scorecard, and finding the fairway in a strong wind or when faced with a tight tee shot are great examples.
In this video and article, PGA Pro and Golf Monthly Writer Joe Ferguson explains how to add this versatile shot to your repertoire...
How Do I Hit A Fairway Finder In Golf?
Joe has worked in the golf industry for nearly 20 years in a variety of roles. After a successful amateur career being involved in England squads at every age group, Joe completed his PGA degree qualification in 2014 as one of the top ten graduates in his training year and subsequently went on to become Head PGA Professional at Ryder Cup venue The Celtic Manor Resort.
Equipment has always been a huge passion of Joe’s, and during his time at Celtic Manor, he headed up the National Fitting Centres for both Titleist and Taylormade.
There typically comes a point on the golf course where distance becomes a secondary benefit and the focus shifts to finding the fairway. It might be that you have a really good round going, and by the 17th tee you just want to play your way sensibly into the clubhouse, or perhaps conditions have shifted and you need to negotiate the elements to avoid big scores.
Whatever the motivation, having a fairway finder shot in your locker is going to be invaluable. Fairways tend to vary in width on different courses, and the level of trouble in-play will also shift along the difficulty spectrum, so understanding where your 'target' is will be really important.
In the video above, I demonstrate what I do when I really need to hit a fairway. There will be other methods out there, but finding your 'safe and comfortable' shot is going to seriously help you to shoot lower scores.
When you are faced with a tight tee shot, having a fairway finder in your locker could be invaluable...
Firstly, there are a couple of adjustments to make at setup. I like to peg the ball down slightly (tee height), as when the ball is teed up higher it can increase my dispersion a little bit.
Teeing the ball lower will change my attack angle, meaning I hit down on the ball a little more, and ultimately what I often see is a little squeezy fade. Knowing that the ball is going to turn from left to right allows me to have confidence in aiming left and trusting that the ball will come back towards the fairway.
The next adjustment at setup is to choke down on the club about half an inch, which essentially means to lower your hands on the grip (as demonstrated in the video above).
This allows me to stand a tiny bit closer to the ball, which promotes a centred contact strike, and with a slightly narrowed stance I also reduce the radius of the swing. This will inhibit your speed a little bit, which is not a bad thing in this situation as the priority is purely finding the fairway.
Hitting the fairway then allows you to go for more greens and set up scoring opportunities...
How Many Fairways Does The Average Golfer Hit?
According to Arccos data, the average number of fairways hit by an amateur golfer in a round of golf is between 6 and 8 (dependant on handicap index). Based on a course with 14 fairways (not including par-3 holes), that's around 42% (6 fairways) and 57% (8 fairways).
The PGA Tour average for fairways hit in a round is 60 percent, so not to dissimilar to the best performing amateur golfers.
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