A while back, I wrote a piece about the TaylorMade Stealth fairway woods and theirs presence in tourist bags. Players like Ludvig Åberg, Jason Day and Nelly Korda have had every opportunity to improve and haven’t. Researching that article got me curious, so I went looking for one myself.
I bought one at Swing Golf second hand
Finding the right specs took a little more digging than I expected. The options in the used market are there, but when you narrow it down to loft, axle flex and condition, the choices thin out very quickly. I shopped around and ended up going down Second Golf Swing.
They had the best deal I could find. I have one TaylorMade Stealth 2 3-wood with 15 degrees of loft for $150 including shipping. I already carried a driver and a 5-wood and had been thinking about adding a 3-wood for a while.
First impressions
I have never owned a TaylorMade wood. I’ve hit on them over the years – actually tested a few when I was shopping for mine Cane 5-wood— but I never found one that clicked for me. So going into this, I had mild skepticism.
Out of the box
of listing in Swing 2 described the situation in a way that, once the club arrived, felt a little generous. The actual quality was a step better than the photos suggested, which is a good thing.
The first thing I did was change the control. Playing a grip that someone else has already used isn’t really my thing, and the medium Winn that came with it wasn’t suitable for my hands anyway. I replaced it with a smaller Lamkin.
Range session
The first swing went left. I worked with it and by the time I got the hang of it, the ball flight started doing exactly what I wanted. It took about five balls.
What stood out the most was how easy it was to get the ball in the air. That’s not something I’ve always been able to say about a 3-wood. The main reason I’ve kept the 3-wood out of my bag for so long is that I’ve consistently had a hard time hitting them with any real confidence. The trajectory was unpredictable or I had to make a really good swing to get a score worth believing.
Distance and ball flight were strong with Theft 2 and I left the range session thinking this might be the easiest 3-wood I’ve ever hit.
On the course
I’ve played a few rounds with it and I’m still getting it, but the confidence level is already high. I’m not staying on the ball going through a checklist of things that could go wrong.
The club does enough work that I can only commit to hitting. What I wanted most was a realistic course to hit the par-5 in two. My 5-wood sometimes gets me close, but leaves me short enough that I rarely put it up for eagle. with Theft 2I’m at least starting to see the approach to those greens. It’s early, but I think it will get me there.
Final thoughts
I’m still in the early stages with this club so it’s too early to say for sure if it will stay in the bag for long. What I can say is that for $150, it’s already filling a void and solving a problem I’ve had for a while. If it’s good enough for Ludvig Åberg, Jason Day, Nelly Korda, and Dustin Johnson to keep playing games when they can switch to something newer, it sure is good enough for me to find out what the fuss is about.
