Full
The number everybody knows and the one used least often on the course. Still needed as the ceiling of the ladder.
Sessions / Wedges
Bounce Is Chosen for the Ground, Not for the Golfer
Sixty minutes on grind, loft spacing and what your wedges actually carry at half and three-quarter effort, which is where most of them get used.
The Core Idea
Two Variables, and Only One of Them Is About You
Wedge bounce selection depends on two things: how steeply you deliver the club, and what the ground is like where you play. Almost every wedge article ever written covers the first and skips the second, which is why so many golfers end up with a low-bounce wedge sold on the promise of versatility and then find it digging in soft spring turf.
Central Iowa conditions swing widely across a season. Spring turf is soft and wet. August turf is firm and tight. Most local bunkers are a coarse, fairly firm sand rather than the deep fluffy sand that low-bounce grinds are designed to escape. Fitting the ground you play on matters as much as fitting your attack angle.
A wedge that is perfect in a launch bay and wrong on a wet April morning is
the most expensive club in the bag, because you will not trust it and you will not replace it.
Grind Is the Part Nobody Explains
Bounce is a number; grind is the shape that number lives in. Material relieved from the heel lets you open the face without lifting the leading edge. Relief in the trailing edge helps on firm turf. A full sole with no relief is the most stable option on soft ground and the most difficult to manipulate around a green.
We keep the same lofts in multiple grinds specifically so this can be tested rather than described. Ten swings off the mat and ten out of the practice bunker settles it faster than any amount of reading.
Gapping Below the Pitching Wedge
Modern iron sets have strengthened lofts to the point that a set pitching wedge can sit at forty-three degrees. Bolt a fifty-six and a sixty onto that and there is a thirteen-degree hole sitting exactly where scoring happens. Measuring your actual pitching wedge loft is step one, and it surprises people every week.
Bounce Starting Points
Local conditions, mid-handicap. The block moves you off these.
Steep, soft turf12–14°
Steep, firm turf10–12°
Neutral delivery8–12°
Shallow, sweeper6–9°
Local bunker sandMid, 10° up
Block Facts
Length60 minutes
Cost$95
Combined optionScoring Clubs, $165
Usual fitterToby Vance
BringWedges and pitching wedge
Groove check comes free. Toby inspects the grooves on every wedge you bring in and tells you what he sees, whether or not you asked. Worn grooves on a sand wedge are the quiet cause of a lot of unexplained short-game inconsistency.
Distance Mapping
Your Wedges at Three Efforts
Full swing numbers matter least. We map each wedge at three clock positions and print the result.
Three Quarters
Where most approach wedges actually get hit. Frequently reveals that two of your wedges land in the same place at this effort.
Half
Inside eighty yards. The most useful column on the printed sheet and the one nobody has measured for themselves.
Shafts and Weight
Wedges Should Not Match Your Irons
Standard practice is to carry the iron shaft down into the wedges. It is defensible, and it is also the reason a lot of golfers find their wedges whippy and hard to control at partial effort.
A wedge shaft benefits from being heavier and stiffer than the corresponding iron shaft, because the club is being controlled rather than swung freely. We test a wedge-specific option in every block. Roughly two thirds of golfers prefer it once they have hit twenty balls with each.
- Heavier shaft, better control. Ten to twenty grams over the matching iron shaft is the usual landing zone.
- Swingweight up, not down. Wedges generally want to feel heavier in the head than the irons above them.
- Length matters at partial effort. Quarter-inch changes are felt more in wedges than anywhere else in the bag.
- Grip texture is a real variable. Corded grips change hand pressure on delicate shots more than most people expect.
Bring Every Wedge, Including the Pitching Wedge
The gap under your set wedge is usually where the whole problem lives.