This is a pretty good thread. I've learned more about wedges here in a few minutes than I ever did on my own in a gajillion years, hehe. I think my short game is the best part of my game, yet needs improvement. I only carry two wedges and don't really consider one (my pitching wedge) a wedge. Beyond that I have a cg14 SW. I seldom have need for more. I've learned how to open the blade way up and send the ball virtually straight up. I over use the heck out of it, but I think thats a good thing. I've become pretty tight with this little guy, lol.

Do I really need more? Maybe if I played very fast slopped greens, but thats rare.

I agree with JP. A launch monitor will do virtually nothing in terms of a wedge fitting. It is about bounce.

I do disagree with you about buying wedges now and it is clear that you have not shopped for them in quite some time. In the last two years OEMs are putting out so many different options in wedges that you do not have to pre-select a brand. Some companies offer 8 different bounces for each degree. Some others due not.

Its funny you say that all of them are stock and that you grind them. When we visited the tour trucks in Doral there was only one player in the entire Taylormade Arsenal (about 50 tour pros) that could not play a stock wedge. With the bounces today the club fitters said that it is in their head more than the club. The best part is the player that does have to grind every wedge gave the exact reason that you did. Sergio Garcia.

I had a 64 degree wedge many years ago and I would consider it for myself to be a novelty wedge. I never found a situation on the course I actually would use it. The percentage of pulling off that miracle shot were so low it hurt more than it helped. I now carry a 60 degree wedge in the bag and rarely use it, maybe once every 2 rounds.

I agree with what most have said about bounce. Like Provisional, I play from a lot of "hardpan" bunkers where you literally have to cut your way into the sand. If I am faced with one of those shots, I use the 60 (or 58) because of the reduced bounce. They allow me to dig in better than the 56 (or 54) which have conventional SW bounces. When I get a chance to play out of real bunker sand, the 54/56 work as they were designed.

I can hit the higher bounce clubs from tight fairway lies, but I have to be careful to put the ball back far enough in my stance to insure clean contact with the ball before the ground.

I guess I don't have you all's game.I've had a couple of 60's and they were hard for me to make the shots I wanted.Moved to 58's which worked better. Now I just carry a 56 that seems to work for me to good effect.It's produced some chip in birdies as well as saves.I dabled in all the lofts and have settled for the 56 for shots from sand and close in where I need the loft.Lets me dable more in the longer end of the set.If I carry another wedge other than the pitching wedge and the 56 it is usually a gap wedge 50-53.For me though it's better to just stick with the 56 which has proven results for me.

I don't think that's as odd as it may seem at first glance.

Most (if not all) players today employ a very square and very regimented method of swinging a golf club. The overwhelming method for controlling distance is to control the length of the swing incrementally and there are very few open stanced/open faced players left out there. But I think that Sergio is one of those "throwbacks" who is more than willing to use a more unconventional approach to shotmaking and as such he feels a greater need for a more "special" club than simply choosing from a variety of factory grinds.

He is certainly a very creative player and I have seen him play with a very open setup when it comes to wedges and as a result, he most likely feels that he needs a bit more in the way of something custom even if that just means a few thousandths of an inch of metal being removed to make him feel as if he has something different in his hands.

Square setups and square swings allow for very specific bounce profiles to be designed into a club because the clubhead is always approaching the ball in more or less the same way most of the time with the only real variable being speed. But open setups require a bit more exotic or custom grind because players often use the club in ways which are not square or consistent and that changing geometry requires the adaptability of a more personal grind to suit that player's variable setup.

Some of the wedges I've ground myself have only required a small amount of metal to be removed or reshaped (usually rounding off the trailing edge), while others have required hours of time on a grinding wheel to get the complex shape I was after. There's also the emotional or psychic satisfaction of knowing that something is truly "one-of-a-kind" (as opposed to some factory option), which demands that something be modified even if that modification is so minimal as be virtually irrelevant.

That's just a personal thing more than anything else.

In the past, players like Palmer, who are true gearheads when it comes to equipment, would spend hours customizing their clubs because they simply enjoyed doing it and it offered a measure of control (real or imagined) over some portion of their game.

Like I said, wedges are very personal things and the reasons why people buy them or modify them are quite esoteric and often do not make any real sense to many, but if tinkering allows that person to play a better game, there's no harm in that. Lee Trevino used to wear a band-aid on his forearm because he felt it gave him luck. Was he nuts, or did it really work?

So if grinding a wedge makes someone feel good, who's to say there's anything wrong with that?



-JP

I have to agree with some of the others saying the 64* doesn't have the control the 60* obtains. It may get to tempting to be used in situations, but in the end that can backfire on your scores

Keith,

I play a 58, as well as a 50 and 55. I used to play a 60, but after years of little use, I dropped to a 58. It has worked wonderfully and fits well with my game. I feel like I have more variety of shots with the 58, and I rarely encounter the situation where I say to myself, "man, I wish I had a 60 for this shot." But even in that situation, I probably would need a 64 or something, so having the 60 wouldn't make much a difference. But like I said, that is few and far between.

My 58 has very little bounce, and my 55 has much more bounce. Thus, I rarely use my 58 in the sand or when it is sitting high on deep rough (unless of course I need the type of shot where I swing my heart out and it only goes 9 feet).

In the end, you need what is best for your game and swing. The 58 happens to be best for my game.

You were given good info, especially when practiced a lot. Something I was told, that has served me well over the years, was the thinner the lie, the less bounce needed. Fluffier the lie, the more bounce needed.

Wedges are such a useful club, and have so many different shots built into them for the end user to use. The problem, as I see it, is that most end users do not take the time to learn many of the different shots that a wedge can provide for them. See it all the time. A golfer winds up in a bunker, and pulls their SW wedge because, it's a "sand" wedge. This when another club could have made for an easier shot. An example might be along the lines that we are always told not to "scoop" the ball off the turf, but sometimes that "scooped" shot is the correct shot for the situation. That info was passed on to me from Harmon's School of Golf while taking some short game lessons from one of their instructors. Using one's imagination, and thinking outside the box as he put it to me. Clubs are just tools, and how they are used to move the ball around, is up to the individual.

I agree 100%

And what you wrote actually makes a case for carrying less wedges because if someone knows how to play a variety of shots with one wedge, there really is little need for other wedges.

As far as the purpose of a wedge is concerned, the idea of a "Sand" wedge only being used in sand is something I've seen quite a bit myself. In bunkers, the club I most often use is my 51 degree wedge which has about a 5 degree bounce with a lot of heel relief. My 55 degree has a bigger bounce (about 10 degrees or so) and I use it only in very soft sand or in "fluffy" conditions where a lower bounced wedge might just slide under the ball altogether.

But I've also used a variety of other clubs to get out of greenside bunkers including a putter because there really is no single club that works for a specific situation. Take hard sand or wet sand; often an 8-iron will be a much better choice than ANY wedge in such situations.

All I know is that for the vast majority of years that I've played this game, I carried only two wedges; a PW and a SW, so I really don't understand the sudden need for multiple wedge setups. I mean, what has really changed so much to justify all of this?
Even my 55 is just excess baggage most of the time. But with the advent of hybrids and a livelier ball, I no longer need a 1-iron or even a 2-iron, so carrying that extra wedge doesn't cost me anything even if the times I've actually used it can be counted on one hand.

As I said, unless you regularly play courses with green speeds that stimp in the low teens, I really don't understand why all of this "stopping power" is needed at all.



-JP