This could be one of the most hotly contested topics in golf club history: What are the best fairway woods of all time?

Originally, this list was going to be a “top 5,” but after a lengthy discussion with a lot of golfers, it quickly became way too difficult to get the list to only five, unless I wanted to deal with civil unrest. So instead, we’re going bigger and giving you the top 10 modern classic fairways woods of all time—along with a few noted additions.

From a fitting perspective, what makes a great fairway wood is a debated topic is because they have to be endlessly versatile. A single fairway wood can play so many different roles to an individual player. What is a unicorn perfect fit to one might be an un-hittable nightmare to another, depending on swing dynamics. From a fairway finder, to a par-5 killer, to a perfect yardage club on a tough par 3, whatever reason you have to hold onto your favorite fairway wood is personal, and like a good friend you truly never want to let it go.

In no particular order, here are the top 10 greatest “modern classic” fairway woods.

TaylorMade V Steel

It is impossible to have a discussion about the top modern fairway woods of all time without having the TaylorMade V Steel come up within seconds. The V Steel was released around the time of another classic early 2000s era TaylorMade—the 200 Steel, but as far as staying power the V Steel is still found in golf bags thanks to its design and versatility.

The V-shaped sole greatly improved turf interaction (TaylorMade’s take on the Warbird sole), and at the time it was introduced, it was a fairly large head that went all the way to a 9-wood. It was offered in both a steel shaft and stock M.A.S. 2 fairway-specific graphite shaft, which some golfers still swear by.

Titleist PT (970)

At one point in time, years after its initial release, the Titleist PT was still the most sought after fairway woods on the planet for one reason: Tiger Woods. The PT (Pro Trajectory) was not a club designed for the less-skilled player. It was a low MOI, workable little beast that allowed you to curve a ball to your heart’s content.

Beyond his famous Scotty Cameron, the Titleist PT was one of the last holdouts in Tiger’s bag until the Nike Ignite T60 came along. There were multiple variations of the PT fairway wood, including the bore through from my personal collection (pictured), the non-bore through, and the 970. Each one slightly different, but all unmistakably Titleist PT.

Ping TisI Tec

The TisI Tec was “the” titanium fairway wood before titanium was really a thing in fairway woods. The TisI Tec woods incorporated a lot of the same technology as the driver, including a multi-material head, adjustable (from factory) hosel sleeve, and thin casting technology to get it as hot as possible. Just like the driver, it came with a steep price tag when it was initially released ($499), but that didn’t stop a lot of players from putting them in the bag—and once they found their way in, they didn’t leave.

Famous professional holdouts of the TisI Tec fairway woods were Miguel Ángel Jiménez and Angel Cabrera, who had one in the bag when he won the 2007 U.S. Open 5 years after the Tec was initially released and Ping was already at the V1 Rapture and G5 series. It was by no means a traditional-looking club, but when you want to break barriers, you have to break the mold, and Ping did that with the TisI Tec Titanium.

Sonartec SS-07

Sonartec was the little fairway wood company with a big following. Originally brought to North America with licensed technology from Royal Collection, the original SS Series woods with the Driving Cavity changed the way golfers looked at how a fairway wood could perform. You could argue over which Sonartec model was truly the best, since they were all so good, but the SS-03 and the SS-07 with the longer bendable hosel were the two most players gravitated towards. There was even a Nick Price “signature” model named the NP-99 that had a cult-like following too. (On a side note, there isn’t a tour player on the planet that played more doomed company equipment that Nick Price)

In the late 90s and early 2000s, the initial era of “full-bag” OEM sponsorship, the fairway wood was still the one club most players could negotiate. The most famous players beyond Price with the Sonartec would have been David Duval who used one to win the Open Championship, among many others victories.

Callaway Original S2H2, Big Bertha Warbird

These clubs were so hard to compare for different reasons I had to put them together. The Original S2H2 stood for Short Straight Hollow Hosel and was one of the very first “forgiving” fairways woods—forgiving being a relative term now. It was a hollow cast steel clubhead with a bore through design. By eliminating the top part of the hosel, weight was saved and the CG was lowered to make it easier to hit.

The most notable player to ever use the S2H2 was Fred Couples, who played one for more than a decade and only finally replaced it with a Callaway FT-i Tour Squareway wood—talk about a tech jump!

The follow-up Warbird fairway wood offered the same S2H2 hosel, but in a much shallower head shape to further lower CG and improve ball flight. To help improve ground contact with the larger head, the Warbird had concave heel and toe pockets to reduce resistance. The warbird sole design was a mainstay in Callaway’s line for decades, and its lineage can still be seen to this day. It even made a full comeback with the V-series a few years ago, which was another underrated club.

Olimar TriMetal

A multi-material head with a maraging steel face, you would have thought the Olimar TriMetal was a club that debuted in the mid-2000s, but instead it was right out of the 90s. The brainchild of legendary club designer Jesse Ortiz (aka the guy who brought us the Bobby Jones Hybrids), the TriMetal was ahead of the game in technology.

It was the first fairway wood to use a strong maraging steel face that saved weight and allowed for repositioning of mass to bump up forgiveness. The TriMetal was an extremely shallow clubhead that was easy to elevate. It came in a huge variety of lofts all the way down to 9 degrees—yes 9 degrees in a fairway wood! For many golfers, this shallow design was a game saver, and like many on the list, you can still find these now at very reasonable prices.

Tour Edge Exotics CB1

The CB1 fairway wood was one of the first mainstream clubs to introduce the world to combo brazing, which is where the CB1 name originates. Brazing is the process of joining two metals with a filler material at a lower temperature (lower than the other two metal’s melting points) to creating one piece. It’s similar to welding but is a lot cleaner, saves weight and is an inherently more expensive process.

The CB1 had a thin titanium cup face brazed to a heavier steel body to maximize forgiveness and remove any unnecessary weight away from the clubface. This resulted in an extremely fast, extremely forgiving design that launched the Exotics line to where it is today. Like other clubs that pushed the boundaries of technology, it was close to 30 percent more expensive than other fairway wood at the time, but for those who hit it and still play them, the price was more than justifiable.

Adams Tight Lies 

The fairway wood that turned fairway woods upside down (obligatory eye roll) and forever linked Adams with being a leader in fairway design! Adams Golf was just a tiny startup when it introduced the very first Tight Lies fairway wood in 1996 to the golfing world with infomercials.

The “upside-down” head design offered a very low CG and gave amateurs who struggled with hitting shots off the deck renewed confidence. The design and shape were so popular that almost 20 years later, Adams reintroduced the Tight Lies to a whole new generation of golfers with crown and sole slots that made it twice as fast (CT Measurement ) as the original but with the same classic shape.

TaylorMade RBZ

As much as you may have doubted the “17 yards longer claim,” I can say almost, without doubt, you went out and tried the TaylorMade RBZ to find out for yourself—I know I did. Introduced at a time when people wondered “what else can you possibly do to a driver?” TaylorMade pivoted and said, “watch what we can do with a fairway wood!”

The RBZ did everything it said it did by offering more ball speed and more distance to players of all abilities. The RBZ fairway woods were not just faster but notoriously stronger-lofted than stated loft by about a degree (I worked in a shop that measured hundreds of these), which also lead to lower launch and spin to also increase distance. As much as you could say the name RBZ (RocketBallz) was cheesy, which it was, this was the fairway wood that reenergized the entire category of clubs for every OEM.

It can also be noted for being the fairway wood that eventually lead TaylorMade to buy Adams Golf and all of its remaining design patents, including the sole slot.

Nike Ignite T60

This was the club that finally got Mr. Woods away from his beloved Titleist PT and into something with some modern technology. The Nike T60 followed the T40 by adding an additional 20g of Tungsten equalling (you guessed it) 60 total grams of tungsten in the sole of the club to create a low-spinning, fast fairway wood.  It was a deeper-faced design that offered a lot of workability and had a 455 carpenter steel face to do everything it could to push ball speeds.

Nike took a lot of unfounded heat early on for its metal woods, but this club really helped change people’s minds about what Nike could achieve, and like I said Tiger hit some pretty great shots with it (Thanks, Johnny Miller, for the 3-wood mention).

What do you think GolfWRXers? Are there any fairway woods you think belong in the top 10 that aren’t included? Any that are included you don’t think should be? Have your say below!