Golf Utility & Rescue Club Buying Guide

What Is A Utility Club?

Utility clubs can be anything from a driving iron or rescue club to a ‘chipper’. As the name implies, utility clubs are very versatile and offer a player many different shots and shapes.

The rescue clubs and driving irons are becoming hugely popular with many club and pro golfers. Bridging the gap between long irons and the longer woods, the rescue club has certainly made an entrance into the golfing world.

Many manufacturers are now making sets from 5-PW, to allow space for a utility or hybrid club in the bag. The utility club has taken on from where the driving iron failed, and the following describes the types of utility clubs in the market:

The most common of the utility clubs is the rescue club. So named for its ability to rescue players from rough, it combines the forgiveness and distance and height of a fairway wood and the stopping ability of an iron.

The small narrow head makes it easier to hit from tough lies than either a fairway wood or a feared long iron. Shorter in length than a fairway wood it feels more like an iron in your hand. Also for use off the tee it will typically travel as far as most players longest irons, and shorter than any fairway wood.

Furthermore the rescue club can save you shots around the green. Due to its shaft length, small head and loft, it can be used to chip and hit longer running approach shots.

The Clubhead

The utility club has a relatively small head compared to fairway woods, which makes it easier to hit from rough. The narrow, smaller area on the head means there is less club to get caught up in the grass and therefore producing better contact in tough lies producing a better shot than you would get using a conventional fairway wood or long iron.

Loft

The loft of utility clubs varies between 15 and 21 degrees typically. This range of loft is chosen to offer an easily hit alternative to a long iron. A 3 iron will have approximately 21 degrees of loft; therefore the utility club is ideal to bridge the gap between fairway woods and irons. One common mistake made by players is thinking that a 15-degree utility club will produce the same distance as a 15-degree fairway wood. The smaller shaft length and headsize of the utility club means it will hit it shorter than a fairway wood with the same loft.

Shaft Length

One of the secrets of the utility club is its length. Unlike a fairway wood, the utility club is shorter than a typical wood and similar to an iron in length. The reason behind this feature is that the shorter the club, the more control you have over your shots.

For more information on shafts, go to the Golf Shafts Buying Guide

Still a club used by many amateurs and professionals alike, the driving iron is a great club off the tee. Basically a larger, more forgiving version of a one iron, it is more suited to a player who feels confident with his/her long irons, and wants a little more distance and control off the tee. Like a typical long iron they produce low spin and have a low trajectory, supporting the golfing theory that they are harder to get airborne than rescues and fairway woods.

Older than the rescue club, it is used to find fairways whilst also producing more distance than a basic long iron. In testing, the driving iron is straighter than either a rescue club or fairway wood and producing a longer carry despite low spin and low height, meaning that its flight is more of a lower arc than the high launch of a rescue or wood.