Ping

Manufacturers have been engineering curves in the face of woods (bulge and roll) since the days of persimmon. “Bulge” (the horizontal curvature) helps mis-hits on the toe and heel curve back towards the target, and “roll” (the vertical curvature) helps impacts high and low on the face launch better. Ping has taken another look at the roll curvature on its fairway woods to prevent shots hit low on the face from launching with too much spin. (These shots generally shoot up in the sky and fall short of their target.) The lower part of the clubface naturally has less loft, but this line of woods from Ping has cut that loft in half so that shots launch with even less spin and with more consistency up and down the face. (With less loft, low-centre strikes also launch with more velocity.) In addition, a high-strength steel alloy face wraps around the body to provide more flexing at impact. The result, Ping says, are shots that launch higher with more speed. Finally, a rear tungsten weight increases stability in the Max model and minimises spin on the more compact LST 3-wood. On the larger, higher-launching SFT heads, the tungsten chip moves towards the heel to provide forgiveness with a draw bias.

LOFTS 14.5, 17.5, 20.5, 23.5 (max); 16, 19, 22 (sft); 14.5 (lst)