Golf Blog

The short game is the most important part of the game and an area of the game where huge numbers can be taken off your score. Sadly the short game is an area that is all too often overlooked both in terms of practice and golf equipment. Moreover golfers are using the pitching wedge and sand wedge from their sets rather than looking at the specialist wedges. If we look in Tour Professionals’ Bags we will see that many of them now carry up to 4 wedges. This means they have every distance and every possible shot covered, resulting in them being able to get up and down every time.

We need to follow their lead and carry more wedges to include a Pitching Wedge, Gap Wedge, Sand Wedge and Lob Wedge. This will mean that from 4 -9, GW, PW, SW and LW will have 4 degrees difference per club throughout the set. Most sets of Irons have a PW that is 47 degrees and SW of 56 degrees meaning that we have 8 degrees between our wedges and are therefore actually missing a club.

The market leaders in wedges are Titleist Vokey along with TaylorMade, Ping, Mizuno, and Callaway.

Loft- When selecting loft we should consider four different wedges; the (60 Degree).

Finish- the two different finishes available for the wedges are the Chrome and the Oil Can (Dark). The chrome is for the more traditionalist golfer and the Oil Can make aligning the wedge easier. A white golf ball on a dark face makes it very easy to align the club at the target.

Grooves- another consideration is the groove design. Wedges now come with Spin Grooves which increase the backspin rate of the golf ball which offers more control in to the greens. One thing to consider is that the golf ball wears quicker with the spin grooves.

Bounce- is a very important area to consider and one that many people fail to understand. The bounce angle is the angle between the leading edge and the ground. The lower the bounce the nearer the leading edge is to the ground. Generally Lower Bounce is better on hard ground conditions. If you tend to take big divots with your wedges then the higher bounce will help prevent it.

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