The rough at Torrey Pines this week is thick – and especially dense, due to Wednesday rainfall – so some PGA TOUR players are adding high-lofted fairway woods to their bags. The added loft on fairway woods, such as 5-, 7- and 9-woods, typically help to launch the ball higher than their long-iron equivalents, due to their lower centers of gravity and overall head mass.
Add world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler to the list.
Scheffler typically opts for just a 3-wood in the fairway wood category, but this week, thanks to a helpful tip from his caddie Ted Scott, Scheffler decided to test some 5-woods, and eventually, some 7-woods, too.
Studying up during the recent 2025 Farmers Insurance Open, also hosted at Torrey Pines, Scott saw how other players were handling the thick rough. High-lofted fairway woods were helping launch the ball higher to get out of trouble, so he suggested Scheffler try out a 5-wood.
On Monday afternoon, Scheffler requested that the TaylorMade team build him up a 5-wood to try.
Scheffler had a target yardage in mind: 245 yards. That’s the number that would properly fill the gap between his longest iron and his 3-wood.
The problem was, though, that a true 5-wood was going too far, around 255-260 yards. That’s when TaylorMade Tour rep Adrian Rietveld and the team pivoted into a strong-lofted 7-wood, instead. Scheffler tried a few different 7-wood builds, before settling into a TaylorMade Qi35 19.75-degree fairway wood. For TaylorMade, it’s the “core” model, and it’s equipped with a bonded hosel, a Fujikura Ventus Black 9X shaft (tipped 2 inches), and it measures 41.5 inches in overall length – that’s exactly an inch shorter than his 3-wood.
Rietveld, who walked 18 holes with Scheffler during his Wednesday pro-am, noted that Scheffler used the club both out of the rough and on some of the longer par 3s, to great avail.
“He wanted it to go 245, so for him, 5 wood’s not 245, a 5-wood’s going to go 255-260,” Rietveld told GolfWRX.com on Wednesday at Torrey Pines. “So I suggested we do it in the 7-wood, or a strong 7-wood. So we built up a Tour and our core offering in the Qi35 and tested them on Tuesday about midday-ish. And then we just hit the course with him (for the Wednesday pro-am). Geez, he’s using it way more than I thought. … On 12, he hit this shot, he had 180 out of the rough (and he hit the green). Then he hit a 4-iron from the same spot afterwards and couldn’t get it 50 yards. So he’s getting the launch out of (the 7-wood). Then, you look at like (hole 11, par 3, 225 yards), (hole 16, 227 yards), he’s hitting it on all these holes. … He’s pretty comfortable with it out of the rough, and off the fairway and in the par 3s I guess, as well.”
Numbers-wise, from a clean lie, Scheffler is launching the new 7-wood at 11 degrees with 4100-4200 rpm of launch, producing about 128 feet of peak height. According to Rietveld, that’s about 20 feet higher launch than his 3-iron.
The goal for Scheffler – at the encouragement of Scott – was to launch the ball higher, especially out of the thick Torrey Pines rough. And, apparently, that goal was achieved with a new Qi35 7-wood.
The world No. 1 player has added a new tool to the toolbox. Competition, take note.
Source: pgatour.com
