Buying New Wedges

[Lowell]

I looking at getting new wedges, and I’m unsure about Low Bounce or High Bounce. I’m on day 44 and since I only have a Pitch and a Sand wedge, I wanted a new 52, 56, 60. Any input on this.

Thanks,

Lowell

[Les]

I think a lot of that has to do with what kind of courses you are going to be playing. If much of your rough is thick you may want more bounce than if you have more tight lies. Also, if your sand is softer or harder will determine how much bounce on your SW.

I usually like around 8* bounce on my 52* and 14* on my 56* SW.

[Tathata Staff]

Hi Lowell,

Thank you for reaching out to us. I hope you’ve enjoyed your path through the program thus far. Exciting to hear that you’re through day 44!

Our answer for this question is based off of your desire to carry 4 wedges in your bag (PW, GW, SW and LW). Some people choose to have three wedges (PW, GW and LW). The amount of wedges just depends on the person and how they want their set to be. Before you spend any money on new wedges, there are a couple things you should do first.

1) Check the loft of your PW. You can do this by researching your current set of golf clubs specs online. If you google the company and model of golf clubs you’re using, you will find detailed lofts for each club. Your other option is to take you clubs to a Golf Shop that measures loft and lie angle and they will be able to tell you the loft of your wedge.

Without knowing what you’re currently using, I would guess your clubs are more current; therefore, the lofts are most likely a tad stronger than the traditional golf clubs. With that said, your PW is probably either 45 or 46 degrees. Ideally, depending on how many wedges you would like to have in your bag, you should have 5 degree increments between wedges, but this sometimes is hard to achieve if you carry 4 wedges. For instance, if you have a 46 degree PW, your GW would be 51, SW 56 and your LW would be 61. We typically don’t like to see anyone go over 60 degrees of loft with the LW.

We would suggest, if your PW is 46 degrees, to have your GW be 50, SW 55 and LW 60. As you can see they’re not all 5 degree increments, but one degree will not hurt. You will still have good consistent gaps between each wedge.

2) Regarding bounce, there are a few factors.

A: What is the condition of the golf course you play? Does your course tend to be more moist or dry?

B: How deep are your divots?

If the course you play tends to be more moist, then we would suggest a tad more bounce. Vice versa if you play a course whose fairways tend to be a tad dry, you would want to use less bounce.

If you currently take deep divots, then you would want a wedge with more bounce. The extra bounce will allow the wedge to glide through the turf easier vs a wedge with less bounce would dig straight into the ground creating a much deeper divot. Also, if your contact miss tends to be a little heavy, the extra bounce will help this miss.

If you take a shallow divot, then a wedge with less bounce would suit you better. If you have a lot of bounce on a firm lie the wedge will most likely bounce off the turf, creating a thin or skull shot.

I don’t believe the golf manufacturers offer too many options of bounce with the GW, so I would just recommend the standard bounce for the GW. However, the SW you would typically want a tad more bounce than what you would have in your LW. For instance, lets say you purchased a SW with 14 degrees of bounce, you would probably want to get a LW with 10 degrees of bounce. The reasoning behind this is you will most likely use the SW for more full shots and may need the extra bounce for those shots, not to mention the extra bounce will help you out of soft bunkers. The LW is generally used for higher softer shots which may call for more crisp contact which less bounce will help to produce. Also, we tend to open the 60 degree up to hit higher shots to tight flags. Having less bounce on the 60 will assist opening the club.

To finish, if you have a steeper swing (deep divot), a SW with 14 degrees of bounce and LW of 10-12 of bounce would be good. If you have a shallower swing (shallow divot) a SW with 10 degrees of bounce and LW with 6-8 degrees of bounce would be ideal.

We hope you find this beneficial in your search for your new wedges. Exciting times when adding new golf clubs to the bag. Should you have any further questions regarding this please do not hesitate to contact us.