The one club that has dominated my bag for years

Welcome to Fully eligible 2026GOLF’s new platform to provide you with real golfer insight into which 2026 equipment might be best for your game. To that end, we gathered six GOLF content creators of varying abilities and put them through the gauntlet of six full-bag rigs (from driver to bag!) at six major club manufacturers in Phoenix and Carlsbad, California. In this piece (below), Jack Hirsh details the club he can’t live without from Fully Fit 2026, his Cobra 3DP MB 5-iron. You can browse our panelists’ complete dream bags for 2026 here:

Jake Morrow (0 handicap) | Johnny Wunder (2) | Wadeh Maroun (2) | Jack Hirsch (2.4) | Mad MacClurg (5.6) | Sean Zak (7.8)

FULLY CUSTOMIZED: Fully Fit Center Site | Why we’re ‘testing’ golf clubs differently this year | Within 6 days of fitting and testing | Browse 2026 Leaders | Browse 2026 bars | How 5 Days With Club Equipment Changed My Mind About Golf Equipment

My golf bag is constantly changing. Week after week, I will have different clubs; hell, there was a stretch where I played a different set every day, I even played a set once that had a different brand for all 14 games in the bag. However, there is one club that you won’t see leave my real players bag; my Ping hybrid.

Currently, the G440 4-hybrid has dominated its place in the bag, and the 5-hybrid still wants to join the party, but I’ve had a Ping hybrid in the bag dating back to the G410. Replaced by a series of G425, G430 and now G440.

It just does what I need it to do

The biggest reason why the Ping hybrid is so important to my bag is the durability it provides. Sure, they’ve gotten faster over the years, obviously easier to launch as well, but they’ve always been incredibly durable. Spin values ​​across the face remain very true, and some of that is due to the shallower profile that a Ping hybrid provides, which is also a great look for me behind the golf ball.

My hybrids are all built to do one job: climb up and go left. All I want is a large drawing on the high tower gently descending into the green. In the current bag, that’s about 220 yards, but I can also run it up to 210 or absolutely rip one to about 230 when I need to.

Another advantage of the new G440, and one of the reasons I upgraded, was that they have now gone with a progressive face angle. Using Arccos player data, they realized that a player using a hybrid 7 is not the same player using a hybrid 2.

They took that knowledge and transformed the formation so that the 2-hybrid has more of a bias to the right, and the taller hybrids are meant to help turn the ball over. The 4-hybrid falls right in the middle. Where the G430 and my previous 4-hybrids were a bit closed, the G440 4-hybrid is very square, which is a useful sight to see behind the ball. I play my hybrids in the standard loft setting, flat, to help launch the ball a bit and let it roll.

Another big benefit for me with the hybrid, especially in this distance category, is the ability to hit it from anywhere. You can tell when you look at the face of my hybrid that it’s been used a lot, but a lot of those marks are from me using the hybrid out of fairway bunkers, into trees, out of concrete-like conditions, and even a few balls into some bushes.

There’s nothing I’m afraid to go after if I get the chance to get the hybrid out. The club definitely leaves with some battle scars, but I’m a big believer in the tools-not-jewels strategy.

The final build

Thanks to Adam Harding of Ping Truck, my hybrid also gets some tour sauce credit with a custom blacked-out face. This is something the internet made controversial when I posted about it, but they didn’t understand the rules.

To me, it makes a tremendous difference. Whitening the score lines hides the loft on the face. This is actually counterintuitive to how I like to lay out the rest of my bag, but with hybrids, it just works. It worked even better on the 5-hybrid we built, and in this case, it helps keep the face from looking so closed.

I match my G440 4-hybrid with one Fujikura Wind HB Red Velocore + 9X. I have now installed this exact shaft in about 8 different clubs and I absolutely love what it has to offer. From the first swing I took with it, there was something special about the shaft.

It’s a slightly different profile than the opposite shaft, so for me it feels a little softer in the hands while remaining stiff enough to really attack the transition in my swing, and it offers a stiffer top section than you’d think with a softer middle that allows for launch assistance, but also remains stable enough to be able to get the ball down more or get the ball down. It’s a great pair for a hybrid for players like me who really need the hybrid to get different flights and create more scoring ability.

My final build specs
Ping G440 4-Hybrid (23° Loft)
Axis: Fujikura Wind HB Red Velocore + 9X
Length: 39.25″ EOG
Ping Trajectory Tuning 2.0 Hosel: APARTMENT, Loft standard
Swing weight: D3

Custom PING G440 Hybrid

The G440 hybrids appeal to a variety of skill levels, each designed to deliver different ball flight characteristics – from the slightly faded hybrid 2 for off-peak performance to the attractive 5, 6 and 7 hybrids that help optimize the gap. They all share a new, shallower, thinner face design that improves face contact for more ball speed and higher shots that hit and hold the green. FLIES HIGH LANDS SOFT Optimized launch and spin provide distance with stopping power. FREE TIE DESIGN Saves weight to lower CG, optimize launch/spin and increase forgiveness. ROUNDED JOINT Provides nice face angle in all tube settings.

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