A hybrid is a type of club used in the sport of golf with a design borrowing from both irons and woods while differing from both. The name "hybrid" comes from genetics to denote a mixture of two different species with desirable characteristics of both, and the term here has been generalized, combining the familiar swing mechanics of an iron with the more forgiving nature and better distance of a wood.
For many players, long irons (numbers 1-4) are difficult to hit well even with modern clubfaces, due to the low trajectory and very small face of the low-loft clubhead. Players tend to avoid these clubs in favor of fairway woods which have a larger "sweet spot" to hit with, but such woods, having longer shafts, have a different swing mechanic that is sometimes difficult to master. The long shaft of a fairway wood also requires much room to swing, making it unsuitable for tighter lies such as "punching" out from underneath trees. In addition, the fairway wood clubface is designed to skim over instead of cutting into turf, which makes it undesirable for shots from the rough. The answer to this dilemma for many players is to replace the 1-4 irons with hybrids.
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