What Is a Hybrid Golf Club?

The hybrid club is considered easier to hit than many golf clubs. To the medium- and high-handicap golfer, this means that a perfect swing is not necessary to hit the ball extremely well. That's because the hybrid club has a lower center of gravity, meaning it will send the ball up in the air with relative ease and keep it on an accurate course.

Golfers who struggle with fairway woods (the 3- and 5-woods) along with long irons (2-, 3- and 4-irons) may find the hybrid club easier to swing. The hybrid club weighs about the same as a medium iron (5-, 6- or 7-iron), yet it provides the distance of a well-struck wood. This allows the golfer to have a greater chance of being successful on a long par 4 or a par 5 hole.

The hybrid club offers a flatter striking area to the golfer. This means there is greater margin of error when the club is used. The average golfer may strive to hit the ball in the middle and center portion of the club head. That same golfer can still hit a successful shot even if he misses that "sweet spot" by an inch.

The hybrid club can be the most effective club in your bag when you hit from the rough on a longer hole. In the past, many golfers would try to get this shot back into the fairway because they feared that the long grass of the rough would hold up their club and not allow it to hit the ball with any significant force. The hybrid club allows the golfer to cut through the high grass because it is lighter and stronger than the average club and gives the golfer the best chance to attack from the rough instead of just trying to get the ball out of trouble.

Many people think that the hybrid club is helpful to medium- and high-handicap players but not top professionals. That's not true. In 2009, nearly 65 percent of all pros carried a hybrid club---often called a utility club---in their golf bag. Included in that number are top pros Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson and Steve Stricker. Those golfers are all known for their shot-making skill, and they all use the hybrid to take advantage of that ability.