PGA Tour players choose woods over long irons By Vartan Kupelian / The Detroit News Comment on this story Send this story to a friend Get Home Delivery There is a revolution afoot on the PGA Tour. Those long irons that always set apart the very best players -- and especially the PGA Tour pros -- from the rest are beginning to disappear in favor of lofted fairway woods. David Duval had a 7-wood in his bag at Augusta National Golf Club for the Masters. Olin Browne has been using a 7-wood on and off for several years. There was a time there were only two head covers in the bag of a PGA Tour professional -- for the driver and 3-wood. Now there are three, with a specialty club taking over for the 1- or 2-iron. Duval dumped his 2-iron at Augusta National in favor of a club he could hit higher and land softer. David Toms used a 5-wood to make the hole-in-one that helped him win the PGA Championship last August at Atlanta Athletic Club. In the same event, Japan's Shingo Katayama unveiled a 9-wood and Vijay Singh, a world-class ball-striker, likes to fiddle sometimes with a 9-wood. "There's a whole different mentality out here now," said Tom Lehman, who has become a convert to the long putter. "Maybe it started with putting, with the long putters and then the belly putter and now the claw grip. There's not just one way of doing things anymore." There's a lesson in that for recreational golfers, who have heard for years that they're better off with lofted fairway woods and should discard the long irons up to and including the 3-iron. That's a lot easier to do when they see PGA Tour players carrying a 7- and 9-woods.