Performance Golf 357 Fairway Hybrid Review: Do Their Claims Hold Up?

The name of this golf club is the whole story and company pitch. Performance Golf calls it the 357 because it’s supposed to be three clubs rolled into one. A 3-wood head, a 5-wood shaft, and a 7-wood loft.

And the promise that they’re selling is a pretty big one. The carry distance of a 3-wood with the accuracy of a 7-wood.

That’s definitely a claim worth checking out, because let’s face it, if it works, that could be awesome for all of us.

But before I get too far ahead of myself, this is a club that they’re marketing mostly to the senior golfer.

The design is intended to help someone with a slower swing speed more easily get the ball up into the air with a big head and a lightweight shaft that Performance Golf says generates more speed than a 7-wood.

And while I’m not yet a senior, at just past 50, I’m gaining on it. And my swing speed’s on the slower side as it is. So maybe I’m a decent candidate for testing.

Regardless, here’s what I’ve found. For me, the 357 is not three clubs in one. But it did become the fairway wood I trust when I’m facing a real scoring shot. And I could see within five swings which club in my bag it would replace.

Let me explain.

So What Exactly Is a 3-5-7?

Performance Golf calls their concept Tri-Fusion. Their idea is that a larger clubhead size gives you confidence, but with a shorter shaft that gives you control, all with a loft that gets the ball in the air.

Here’s how it specs out:

• Loft: 21 degrees
• Length: 42 inches
• Lie angle: 60 degrees
• Flexes: Stiff, Regular, Senior, Ladies (I tested the stiff)
• Face: A wide “Bulldozer” face that sits out in front of the hosel to push grass out of the way
• Construction: Cup face for ball speed, a recessed crown to lower the center of gravity, plus sole rails and extra heel weight meant to help square the face

The club was designed by Chris McGinley, who spent more than 20 years at Titleist working on woods, irons, Vokey wedges, and Scotty Cameron putters, plus a stint at Honma. Pretty decent resume.

Since the 357 claims a 5-wood shaft and 7-wood loft, I wanted to see how it measures up against real 5-woods and 7-woods. So I pulled up the specs on three current max-forgiveness fairway wood lines: Ping’s G440 Max, Callaway’s Elyte, and TaylorMade’s Qi35 Max.

The 7-woods in all three lines are right around 21 degrees of loft, same as the 357.

The shaft length, however, is kind of interesting. The 357 is 42 inches. The 5-woods in those three lines run from 42.25 to 42.75 inches, so the 357 is shorter than every one of them. Their 7-woods run from 41.75 to 42.25 inches, which puts the 357 right in the middle of that range. Ping’s 7-wood is exactly 42.

So the “5-wood length” shaft is really closer to 7-wood length. It’s definitely shorter than a 3-wood, of course, which is the comparison Performance Golf makes when it talks about control.

They also say the lightweight shaft generates more speed than a 7-wood. Since the length is about the same, any extra speed would have to come from the lighter weight, not from length.

The other differences are the head, which is sized like a 3-wood, and the lie angle. At 60 degrees, the 357 sits more upright than the Ping and Callaway 7-woods, which are both 57. TaylorMade’s Qi35 Max 7-wood is also 60, though, so it’s not unheard of.

The upright lie, along with the extra heel weight, is a big part of why this club has a draw bias. So if you fight a slice, that’s great news.

Personally, I play more of a draw. And while it is hard to get this club going right, I actually found it easy to shape a right-to-left shot without it overdrawing.

But I think the real takeaway here is that this club is closer to a 7-wood than it is to a 5-wood or a 3-wood.

And that’s not a knock. A 7-wood is one of the easiest long clubs in the bag to hit. It’s just worth knowing that, by the numbers, what you’re really getting in the 357 is a 7-wood with a bigger head.

Which, as I discovered, is a pretty awesome combination.

First Impressions of the Performance Golf 357 “Super Hybrid”

I really like how this club sits at address. That’s probably the first thing that really made an impression on me.

I know you’re not supposed to let a club set itself. But this one does it so naturally. It just falls in behind the ball, perfectly square, without any manipulating on my part, which I really liked.

It might be in part because of that kind of square feeling, but I had a nice sense of confidence standing over the 357. You see the size of that head, and you can intuitively feel the control of the shorter shaft. So it kind of has a compact, stocky, powerful feel to it.

A shorter shaft obviously means you’re not going to generate the same speed you would with a longer club. But that’s not how it feels at address. It feels like you’re about to smash one.

One thing I really don’t care for about this club is the sound. It’s one of those metallic “ting” or “tink” sounds that, to me, kind of sounds cheap. It honestly gets a little annoying when you’re hitting a bunch of them in a row at the range. But on the course, who really cares?

How I Tested It

I tested the 357 against the two fairway woods I already carry. A 19-degree Tommy Armour EVO 5-wood and a 15-degree Callaway Rogue 3-wood.

I started outside with a quick look on a Garmin G82, six shots per club, mostly just to get a feel for things.

Then I moved indoors to a FlightScope Mevo Gen 2. Twelve shots per club, all with a Pro V1 and a metallic sticker for accurate spin. I rotated through the clubs in just about every order you can think of, so no one club got stuck going first or last.

I threw out two 5-wood readings where the spin came back too low to be real. Everything else stayed, bad swings included.

I’m not going to share my actual yardages here.  My numbers aren’t going to tell you much about yours. What’s useful is how these clubs compared to each other, swung by the same guy on the same days.

Did It Deliver 3-Wood Distance?

For me, this was the biggest letdown. The part of the promise about 3-wood distance just wasn’t at all true for my game.

My 3-wood out-carried the 357 by double digits in both sessions. And when I caught my 3-wood flush, it wasn’t at all close.

Maybe a golfer who truly can’t get a 3-wood off the ground would see it differently.

At the end of the day, that’s probably exactly who is going to benefit most from this 357 club. Someone who can’t really hit a traditional 3-wood. The 357 at least gives you back some of the advantage of a 3-wood-sized head.

What About 7-Wood Accuracy?

I don’t carry a 7-wood, so I can’t compare that one head-to-head.

But what I can say is that of the three clubs I tested, the 357 was the straightest.

My dispersion was tightest with the 357, and eight of my 12 shots landed within eight yards of my target line, which is better than either of my fairway woods did.

So I’d call that half of the promise a pretty fair one.

Launch and Forgiveness Are Where the 357 Shines

This is the part Performance Golf is really selling to slower swing speeds. And it delivered.

The 357 launched about 6 degrees higher than my 3-wood on a typical swing. It also peaked about 17 percent higher than my 5-wood, even though those two launched at about the same angle. The 357 spun a bit more and just stayed in the air longer.

For a golfer who struggles to get long shots up in the air, that’s a big deal.

The biggest difference, though, was how the 357 handled my misses.

My worst 357 shot still carried close to 90 percent of my typical 357. My worst 5-wood barely made it past half of a typical 5-wood. My worst 3-wood didn’t even get that far, and a couple of my 3-wood misses barely got off the ground.

The 357 never did that. Its lowest launch of the day was still higher than a third of my 3-wood shots.

My 3-wood still has the higher ceiling. But the 357 has a much higher floor.

The Club It Replaced for Me

For me, the 357 made it obvious that I suck with my 5-wood.

Whether that means the 357 stays or the 5-wood gets replaced with something else, I’m still undecided. But the 5-wood is out.

It wasn’t much of a contest between that club and this 357. The 357 has two more degrees of loft than my 5-wood, so on paper it should fly a little shorter. Instead, it went a little longer. It also flew straighter and held up a lot better on my mishits.

I hit my 3-wood fairly decent. When I hit it well, it’s still my most solid fairway wood, and when the distance calls for it, that’s what I’m pulling.

But when I’m facing a real scoring shot, the 357 is the easier club to hit than my 5-wood was. It’s more consistent, and I trust it more.

The Skeptics Aren’t Totally Wrong

A club like this is going to draw a lot of opinions. And you can definitely find a healthy amount of skepticism about the 357.

We were certainly skeptical in our testing with both the One-Wedge and the RS1 putter – but came away from both pretty impressed.

The general take is that the 357 is a beginner’s club. That it comes from a direct-to-consumer brand with a big marketing push. And that it’s not going to outdo the major manufacturers and all of their R&D resources.

I think there’s some truth to that. Plus, a good chunk of what makes this club easy to hit is what makes any 7-wood easy to hit. The Tri-Fusion story is clever, but it also might mostly be marketing.

But for me, it’s about the actual performance. And in my testing, the 357 outperformed my 5-wood in more ways than it’s supposed to. So I call that a win for this club regardless of whether it’s a premium product.

Also, the 357 retails for $299, but you can find it pretty much all the time for $249. You can easily spend a hundred dollars more than that if you want to buy a new fairway wood from a major brand.

And I don’t think “beginner club” is a fair label at all for the 357. This is definitely a club that could benefit even an experienced golfer. In fact, it’s the most experienced golfers, the seniors, that they’re marketing it to.

Who Should Buy the Performance Golf 357?

If your 3-wood is reliable and you’re after more distance, I don’t think the 357 is the answer. It wasn’t for me.

If you already have a 7-wood you love, think it through. Spec-wise, the 357 is closer to a 7-wood than the name might suggest. Though I do love the look of this club at address.

But if you’re a senior golfer, or your swing is on the slower side, this is worth a serious look. The higher launch and the forgiveness on mishits fit that golfer really well.

Same goes if you struggle to get your fairway woods in the air.

Or, if you’re like me, and you realize that your 5-wood is trash.

In any of those scenarios, I think the 357 is a very legitimate choice, and I wouldn’t let the skeptics scare you off that position.

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It didn't give me 3-wood distance. It did knock my 5-wood out of the bag.

8.8 Solid

Performance Golf built the 357 for senior golfers and slower swings, and that's exactly where it shines. It launched higher, flew straighter, and handled my mishits far better than my 5-wood, even with two more degrees of loft. The 3-wood distance claim didn't hold up for me, and by the numbers, it's really a 7-wood with a bigger head. But that turns out to be a pretty awesome combination.

The Good

1. Gets the ball in the air easily
2. Tightest dispersion of the three clubs I tested
3. Very forgiving on mishits
4. Sits square at address and inspires confidence
5. Outperformed my 5-wood despite having more loft

The Bad

1. Nowhere near 3-wood distance for me
2. Tinny, metallic sound at impact
3. The

• Presentation 8.5
• Performance 8.5
• Price 9
• Personal Affinity 9