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Ok after 6 months of practice (and 3 lessons) i can least hit my irons ok-still a long way to gothough.

However i just can't seem to grasp hitting a wood. It's not just the distance i can't seem to make decent contact with the ball. I read that the swing should be the same as when your are hitting an iron but so far no luck.
I also read if you are having trouble to try a shorter shaft. Well my irons are about an inch long while the woods are standard so in essence the clubs are shorter.

I have an 18 degree hybrid wood coming soon(from solid rock golf by the way) and am hoping this may help.Tried a tour edge iron wood and had trouble with that.

After just playing 80-110 yard par 3's so far in a week and a half i am going to start playing with some guys from work and at this point it seems like i will have to tee off with a 4 iron.

Obviously more lessons are the best option but does anyone have any tips,advice,books to look at ,websites to check out to help in the meantime. Would an offset wood help?

Luckily i haven't gotten too frustrated yet and the guys i will be playing with know i'm a beginner
so thats not a problem.

Woods must be swept like you would swing a broom. Irons are hit with a decending blow. They are not hit the same. Sweep those fairway woods

I think any time you hit something off the deck you should come into the ball with a descending blow. Even with a three and five wood. However it is not a steep blow with the woods. You are basically clipping off the tops of the grass as you come through the ball. So think more about the bottom edge of the club as a blade that cuts off the top 1/4" of grass, maybe a little less, as you come through the ball. When we think of sweeping the ball off the deck we have a tendency to try and help the ball up or lift ball off the ground instead of letting the loft of the club take care of it. It is not an easy shot to master you just have to experiment until you get the feeling of swinging through the ball instead of the slight hesistancy at the moment of truth when we can literally lift the club off the ground a bit to try and lift the ball into the air.

All that being said, ball position is a major factor in determining the angle of attack to the ball. Make sure you don't have the ball back too far in your stance.

Dude...they are the hardest thing in the bag to hit...concentrate on the rest, dedicate a portion of practice time to them and they will come to you...took me five years for consistent three wood play...I might be a slow learner, but relative to the rest of the clubs in the bag, only the two iron was more difficult to hit consistently, and I got rid of those...

As far as tips, tempo is the king of the wood swing...hit down, take a small divot, keep the left shoulder high and swing "under" it...put a little more weight on your left side at address, take time at the top for your weight transition, and concentrate on ball contact before power...you will suprise yourself how far it goes if you just hit it solidly...

Oh yeah...your initial takeaway ought to be low and straight back along the target line until the club must come inside as a natural movement....

Well when you said woods are the hardest thing to hit in the bag and that it took you several years to get the hang of it made me feel much better.
I recently had the mindset that i better go to the range and just try to learn to hit the wood because i was so weak at it. However i will take your advice and just use a portion of practice time to woods(which makes good sense anyway because if i don't keep hitting irons and wedges i'll probably regress with those clubs)

It's a journey...keep at it, you'll get better...

I just want to reinforce what bump-n-run said. I agree that hitting a wood off the deck is one of the hardest shots to get consistent results from. And the longer woods are much harder.

I am sure the vast majority of players who have only played 6 months can't hit a 3 wood off the deck. If you can hit a 4 iron with some consistently you are doing well.

I've been playing a year and a half now, practice a lot, average playing about once a week, and I still can't hit my 3 wood off the deck with any consistency.

IMO, there are 2 keys to scoring well as a beginner. The first is to consistently advance the ball while keeping it in play. It's better to just get 100-120 yds with each shot keeping it in play than to get 170 half the time, 30-50 a lot of the time, and take 10 penalties in a round. The club of choice should generally be the longest club you have a lot of confidence in and can safely advance the ball. I've had days where that is a PW or 8-iron, and didn't use a longer club (it's been a while, but I remember those days). The second key is to work on the short game. It's been said millions of times ... the quickest way to improve scoring is short game work.

Keep practicing the clubs you can't hit, but leave them in the bag on the course until you have confidence with them. A little advice on the woods ... take a very easy relaxed swing and make sure you follow through well. Also remember that for most people, the ball needs to be further forward at address for fairway woods, and the longer the wood, the further forward. When I started hitting my 5 wood decently at all, it was just a simple change of moving the ball 2 inches forward from where I was addressing it. Some people (including me) play the ball off the inside of the forward foot for a 3 wood, and even a 5 wood.

What seemed to help me a lot when i was struggling hitting the woods of the deck was focusing on swing fundamentals. Good setup. Upper body leading the backswing, lower body in charge on the downswing.

I get much better results with all my woods with a down and through swing that results in a hard brushing of the ground sometimes even getting a small divot. I reserve the sweep for the driver.

I find woods easier to hit by sweeping them and taking a small divot. ball placement should be a ball or a ball and a half behind driver. That works well for me at least.

Which woods you playing big guy?

Some good tips here especially the one about swinging too hard. I know I am guilty of it. It is difficult to get out of your mind the idea that you have to swing really hard to get the ball off the ground. He also emphasizes that you do not sweep the ball off the ground. I nice shallow diviot, one that cuts the top of the grass in a slightly descending blow coming into the ball works best.