Titleist GT1 3Tour Fairway Wood: Built To Launch

There are a good amount of golfers that have a fair amount of speed, but still need a little bit of help with added launch and spin to get the most from their 3-wood. To add confidence when hitting a club with less loft, they'd also be looking for a shallower profile. Well, if this sounds like you, then Titleist has something that could perfectly fit the bill with the launch of their newest GT1 3Tour 3-wood, designed to pair a forgiving lower profile with reduced loft to help golfers achieve a stronger and flatter trajectory.

What's It All About

The GT1 3Tour is a GT1 profiled head, but with less loft and a slightly more forward center of gravity than the standard GT1 3-wood head to deliver less spin.

In a way, it's like if the GT1 and GT3 had a baby, and that baby inherited most of its looks from the GT1, but on the inside is a lot like a GT3 (a lower-spinning model).

(Look, I know that the above sentence is a little weird, but you know what, I'm a little weird and I don't mind using unusual analogies to help you better understand golf clubs. So with that in mind, I'll let Titleist’s Senior Director of Club Promotions, JJ Van Wezenbeeck explain the origins of the design more formally.)

"During GT1 fairway testing, we found some TOUR players really loved the shaping and face height, but we knew that many of them would need a little less loft and lower CG for a stronger flight," Van Wezenbeeck said. "Tom Bennett [Principal Product Manager, Titleist Metalwood R&D] and the R&D team were able to give us a product in GT1 3TOUR that gave us all the benefits of the GT1 shaping while lowering spin to a more optimal window for those players. Since bringing it out on tour, we’ve seen strong adoption from several players who like a shallow, easy-to-launch design, but need a little less spin.

Those players include the likes of Cameron Davis and Doug Ghim.

Core GT design features

Seamless Thermoform Crown

Aligning with the rest of the Titleist GT line of drivers and fairway woods, the GT1 3Tour features Titleist’s proprietary matrix polymer crown to help save weight from the top of the club head while maintaining a preferred metallic sound at impact.

Split Mass Construction

The GT1 3Tour has a split-mass internal construction. This is possible because of the wraparound nature of the matrix polymer crown, which allows engineers to push more weight to the front and back of the head to increase MOI for better stability on mishits.

Split SureFit Weighting

Like the core GT1 fairway wood, the GT1 Tour has front and back weights to precisely dial in launch and spin characteristics.

RELATED: Are You a Slicer? These Fairway Woods Were Made For You.

My Take

In the fitting word, fairway woods (especially 3-woods) are some of the most difficult clubs to get players dialed into because they have to be so multifaceted. They need to be used off the tee, off the deck, out of rough, hit the ball high, hit the ball low, and do it all with a longer shaft and very little loft.

By adding the GT1 3Tour to its line, Titleist is simply bringing a tour-proven product to the masses to create another opportunity for golfers to find the right club to fit their long game. Do I think its a touch overkill to add another 3-wood option to a line that already includes the GT1, GT2, and GT3 models, not to mention the GT280 mini-driver?

To be frank, yeah it's a lot. But, with that being said there is another manufacturer out there that has at least five 3-wood options in the market, and that's without counting their mini driver.

At the end of the day, it's always up the the golfer and the fitter they work with to determine the best club to fit a particular place in the golf bag, and since Titleist already went through the process of R&D plus tooling to bring this club to the PGA TOUR, it makes sense to let us non-tour players, try and find that better fit too.

The GT1 Tour is priced at $400 and available for pre-order and fitting now, with clubs arriving in stores on August 7th. For more information on the full selection of featured and custom shafts available in the GT1 Tour, head to Titleist.com.

RELATED: Three Good Reasons to Try an Adjustable, High-Lofted Fairway Wood