The one club that's dominated my bag for years

Welcome to Fully Fit 2026, GOLF’s new platform for providing you with real-golfer insights into what 2026 gear might be best suited for your game. To this end, we assembled six GOLF content creators of varying abilities and ran them through the gauntlet of six full-bag fittings (driver to putter!) at six major club manufacturers in Phoenix and Carlsbad, Calif. Our hope: that you might see shades of your own game in one of our panelists’ and take some learnings and inspiration from their fitting experiences. In this installment (below), Jack Hirsh details the one club he can’t live without from Fully Fit 2026, his Cobra 3DP MB 5-iron. You may browse each of our panelists’ full 2026 dream bags here:

My golf bag is ever-changing. Week to week, I’ll have different clubs; hell, there was a stretch where I played a different set every day, even playing a set once that had a different brand for all 14 slots in the bag. There is, however, one single club that you won’t see leave my true gamer 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 all the way back to the G410. Replaced by a G425, G430, and now the G440 series.

It just does what I need it to do

The biggest reason why the Ping hybrid is so important to my bag is the consistency that it delivers. Sure, they’ve gotten faster over the years, definitely easier to launch, too, but they’ve always been extremely consistent. Spin values across the face stay very true, and some of that is due to the more shallow profile that a Ping hybrid provides, which is also a great visual for me behind the golf ball.

My hybrids are all built to do one job: go up, and go left. All I want is a big high-tower draw that lands softly on the green. In the current bag, that’s at about 220 yards, but I can also float it down to 210 or absolutely rip one to about 230 when I need to.

My well-loved G440 4-hybrid build. Jake Morrow / GOLF

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

They took that knowledge and transformed the lineup so the 2-hybrid has more right-bias in it, and the higher lofted hybrids are meant to help turn the ball over. The 4-hybrid falls right in the middle. Where my G430 and previous 4-hybrids were a little bit shut, the G440 4-hybrid is very square, which is a helpful visual to see behind the ball. I play my hybrids in the standard loft, flat setting to help start the ball a bit right and let it draw back.

Another huge benefit for me with the hybrid, particularly 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 well-loved, but lots of those marks are from me using the hybrid out of fairway bunkers, in the trees, off of some concrete-like conditions, and even a couple of balls in some bushes.

There is nothing I am afraid of going after if I have the chance to bring out the hybrid. The club definitely comes away with some war wounds, but I’m a big believer in the tools-not-jewels strategy on course.

Close-up of a black golf club head with visible grooves and some wear marks, with a blurred background of various golf bags and equipment. — I need to refill my scoring lines with paint, but the war wounds tell a fun story. Jake Morrow / GOLF

The Final Build

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

To me, it makes an incredible difference. Blacking out the score lines hides the loft on the face. That’s actually counterintuitive to how I like to set up the rest of my bag, but with the hybrids, it just works. It worked even better on the 5-hybrid we built, and in that case, it helps to make the face not look so closed.

I match my G440 4-hybrid up with a Fujikura Ventus HB Red Velocore + 9X. I’ve now installed this exact shaft in about 8 different clubs, and I absolutely love what it offers. Since the very first swing I took with it, there was something special about the shaft.

It’s a slightly differnet profile than it’s wood shaft counter-part so to me it feels a little bit softer in the hands while remaining stiff enough to really attack the transition in my swing, and it provides a stiffer tip section than you would think with a softer mid that allows for assistance in launch, but also remains stable enough to be able to flight the ball down or get a bit more steep on the ball too. It’s a wonderful pairing for a hybrid for players like myself who really need the hybrid to work different flights and create some more scoring ability.

My final build specs
Ping G440 4-Hybrid (23° Loft)
Shaft: Fujikura Ventus HB Red Velocore + 9X
Length: 39.25″ EOG
Ping Trajectory Tuning 2.0 hosel: FLAT, Standard Loft
Swingweight: D3

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PING G440 Custom Hybrid

The G440 hybrids appeal to a variety of skill levels, each engineered to deliver different ball- flight characteristics – from the slightly fade-biased 2 hybrid for off-the-tee performance to the draw-inducing 5, 6 and 7 hybrids that help optimize gapping. They all share a new, shallower and thinner face design, which improves face contact for more ball speed and higher-launching shots that hit and hold the green. FLIES HIGH LANDS SOFT Optimized launch and spin ensure distance with stopping power. FREE-HOSEL DESIGN Saves weight to lower CG, optimize launch/spin and increase forgiveness. ROUNDED SOLE Ensures pleasing face angle in all hosel settings CARBONFLY WRAP Lightweight carbon crown saves weight to increase MOI, lower CG.

$319.00 from Fairway Jockey