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Reasons Why You Must Get Fitted For Your Wedges
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Apr 1, 2025
In this video, Joel Tadman runs through the eight things golfers need to consider when choosing new wedges and to go through during the custom fitting process. Wedges are the clubs in the bag many golfers fail to get properly dialled in for, which can lead to shortcomings when it comes to trying to get up and down around the green. These pointers should help create a checklist for you to tick off when buying new wedges to ensure they're perfectly suited to your technique and typical home course conditions.
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0:00
Now be honest, how many of you have been custom fitted for your wedges
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Well, the stats say that the wedge is the club that golfers tend to not get fitted for the most
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along with your putter, but I would argue getting fitted for your wedges is probably one of the
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most important clubs in your bag to get fitted for, because it's really going to save you shots
0:16
around the green and help you get up and down. So in this video, I'm going to cover the eight reasons why you should get custom fitted for your wedges. Let's get into it
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So one of the main things you need to consider when choosing new wedges is the amount of
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bounce you have on your wedges. Now, bounce is the relationship between the leading edge
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and the trailing edge. You can see here, it's the angle between the two, and the steeper
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the angle, the more bounce your wedge has. And bounce is really important because it increases
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your margin for error on your strike. If you had a wedge with completely no bounce, that
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leading edge would be incredibly sharp. The margin for error on the strike would be nothing
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at all, it'd be very difficult to strike your chip and pitch shots cleanly. So it just gives you a
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little bit of leeway on the strike and your technique, as well as the prevailing ground
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conditions, would influence the amount of bounce you should have. So if you tend to be quite steep
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into the golf ball, you want a bit more bounce to give you a little bit more resistance through the
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turf. As if you're quite shallow into the golf ball, you don't need as much bounce on your wedges
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And then in terms of the turf conditions, if you play on quite tight, links, firm turf
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you don't need a lot of bounce because the ground is firm, and as the name suggests
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if you have too much bounce, the leaning edge won't get under the ball, the wedge will bounce
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off the ground and you won't be able to strike the ball cleanly. Conversely, if you play a lot of courses that have damp turf, soft ground conditions, you
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want a little bit more bounce to stop that leaning edge and the sole from digging too much into the ground through the strike
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So really think about the amount of bounce you have. thing you need to think about is how you tend to play your shot. So if you play a lot of shots with
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an open face, that will effectively increase the effective bounce on the sole. So you might want to
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go for a lower static bounce and then when you open the face on your chip and pitch shots, that's
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going to give you more effective bounce. So a lot to think about when it comes to bounce, technique
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ground conditions, the way you open or close the face, factor all that in to get the right bounce
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for you. Now a really crucial element to get right on your wedges is the lie angle of the club. Now
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the lie angle is the angle the shaft comes out of the head when it's kind of sat flush on the ground
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There's two reasons why lie angle is really important. The first is in terms of where the
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loft is pointing. So if the the toe of the club is too far off the ground, the loft on the face is
2:38
actually pointing to the left of the target. It's a concept called face plane tilt, so that can
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can really affect your start lines. So if the toe's too far up, you're missing to the
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left. If the toe is too far down or the heel's off the ground, the face is pointing to the
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right. So even though the leading edge might look square to you, the lie angle's off, you're
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missing to the right, you hit wayward wedge shots, which is something that no one wants to do. So it's really important to try and get that sole of the club flush to the ground
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at the point of impact And that why you probably want to go for a slightly flatter lie angle in your wedges than you do with your irons because with a wedge you not spinning it as fast the shaft isn flexing as much you not getting as much shaft droop where the shaft bends in this direction so you probably want to go slightly
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flatter with your wedges to account for that. The other reason lie-angle is really important is the
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kind of the cleanliness of the strike, so to speak. If you are hitting lots of chip shots
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around the green but your heel is into the ground, the toe is off the ground, you're not going to get
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clean strikes with your wedge shots. The face might close, especially if the toe's up
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you can miss to the left. So with your wedge shots, it's really important to get that sole
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flush to the ground, get that lie angle nice and flat, and it should lead to better chip shots
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Oh, nearly held it. Now another really important area of your wedges when it comes to getting
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fitted is the grind on your wedge. Now, grind refers to the shaping or the geometry on the
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sole of the wedge and all major manufacturers will offer different grinds, especially in those
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mid to high lofts where you're hitting a lot of different types of shot. You want to get a bit more
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creative around the greens. It's important to have the right grind to match up to the type of shots
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you like to play and also a little bit with your technique as well. So, you know, in those mid to
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high lofts, you'll often see some of the wedge and especially in the heel and toe kind of ground away
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or grinded away, whatever floats your boat. On the lower lofted wedges where you play a lot of full
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shots, the sole will look a lot more like an iron, so it'll be even all the way along from heel to toe
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whereas in those mid to high lofts like I've got here, it's got a little bit of heel relief
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a little bit of toe relief, and that's just to give you that freedom to open or close the face
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depending on how you like to play your shots. So especially if you like to open the club face
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having heel relief is really important because if you didn't, that leading edge would rise up above
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the ground when you open the face and that will lead you to thin the ball across the green
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So it's really important to have some heel relief. If you do like to open the face, that
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will keep the leading edge nice and low and allow the club to get under the ball smoothly
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So I'll hopefully try and demonstrate that for you now. So on this particular shot
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I'm just going to open the face slightly and that should allow the club just to glide along
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the ground and pick the ball cleanly. Hit that one a bit too hard, but as you can see, good result, nice clean interaction with
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the turf. So getting the right grind for you should lead to better shots
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Now, arguably one of the most important things when it comes to getting custom fit for wedges
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is having the right gapping. Now you can carry as many wedges as you want in your bag
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Some people have three wedges, some people have four, some people have five wedges, depending
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on the other clubs in the other area, ends of the bag. So for me personally, I recently switched into a new set of irons where the pitching
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wedge was a little bit stronger, went from 46 to 44 degrees
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And as a result, I had to get rid of my 50 degrees and go into a slightly stronger gap
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wedge at 48 degrees, just to hit an even distance gap between my pitching wedge and my sand wedge
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which is 54 degrees. Bit confusing, but it's really important to have even distance gaps as you work through
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the wedges. You don want to have a 15 yard gap between your pitching wedge and your sand wedge You want to have nice even gaps that going to allow you to attack different flags different distances with different swing lengths as well So think about how many wedges you want to carry the shots you want to hit around the greens and make sure you have nice even distance gaps in those
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lofts to cover off all those distances. Now the next area to consider when it comes to your wedges
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is the length of the shaft. Again, really important, especially when it comes to controlling the low
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point of your swing, which is really critical when it comes to wedges and getting a clean strike
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on the golf ball. If your wedges are too long, there's a good chance that you'll tend to bottom
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out too early, strike the ground before the ball, duff shots, thin shots, not a great result
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Conversely, if your wedges are too short, which can be the case if you're quite a tall golfer
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you're an inch longer in your irons, and then you just go and buy some standard wedges off the rack
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obviously that results in compensations that you have to make, especially on those full shots
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you could be reaching for it with your arms. Just moves the low point all over the place
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not good for your strike, both in terms of where you're striking the ground, but also laterally
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heel and toe. If the length's off, you could be striking the ball too far at the toe or too far
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at the heel. So it's really important to get the length of the shaft right. It needs to feel
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comfortable to you on full shots. A general rule is, so for me personally, I'm an inch longer than
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my irons and half an inch longer than my wedges. So still slightly shorter than my irons, but a
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little bit longer than standard. So it's important you get the right length. That's going to give you
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the clean strikes that you need on full shots also those chip shots around the green now an
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underrated area of your wedge construction is the grip and it can have an impact on the performance
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especially the size of the grip it needs to feel comfortable in your hands obviously it's the only
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point of connection you have with the club so it needs to feel nice in your hands but if you go for
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a grip that's too thin that can accentuate wrist action through the shot could lead to the club
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botting out too early or spinning the ball over the green so it needs to be one that's not going
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to give you excessive wrist action generally having a grip size that matches your irons is a
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good idea you can also get wedge grips wedge specific grips that i've got here where they
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tend to be a little bit longer they also have markings on there so if you're tend to play a
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lot of wedge shots where you like to grip down the club having a reminder in terms of where your
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thumbs are positioned will just give you that consistency of strike which should help your
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performance so consider a wedge specific grip i know ping do a lot of those other brands do it as
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well. But generally speaking, try and go for one that feels comfortable. The golden rule is to have
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when you're putting your hands, it should kind of just, your fingers should be just touching
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the pad of your thumb there. If it's too far away, the grip's probably too thick and if it's
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overlapping too much, it's probably too thin. So have it just where they're touching, that'll give
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you a nice reminder as to the size of the grip being nice and correct and comfortable in your
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hands and that should help your performance. Now another area to consider in your wedges is the
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shaft that you play. Now, you can get wedge-specific shafts that give you a little bit more spin
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but I would say, generally speaking, it's a good idea to have a maker model of shaft that's
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similar to what you've got in your irons. That gives you the consistency of feel when it comes
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to your full shots with your wedges. Let's face it, you do hit a lot of full shots with your wedges
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so that a really important factor One thing I would recommend and it something a lot of tour players do is they do tend to go down a stiffness profile when it comes to the shafts in their wedges versus their irons You think about wedges you don apply as much load or pressure in the shaft with a wedge shot as you might do a six or a seven iron So you think of
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people like Jordan Spieth, he's got a Project X 6.5s in his irons and 6.0s in his wedges. So
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slightly softer profile in his wedges just to give you that feel and responsiveness, especially
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on those shorter shots into around the green. You don't want a shaft that feels too boardy or too
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stiff. You want it to have a little bit of give to it, a little bit of kind of feel in there. So that's why it's really important to have that conversation with your fitter. They'll be able
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to guide you into the right make and model and flex of shaft in your wedges for you
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Now last but by no means least is swing weight and this can have an effect on the performance of
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your wedge shots. Now swing weight is effectively a measure of the weight distribution of the club
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if the club is more head heavy, it has a heavier swing weight, and if you've put a heavier grip
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on it, the balance point moves up and the swing weight becomes lighter. But a swing weight can
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have an effect on your wedge shots, as I've mentioned. Generally, if your wedge is too head
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heavy, it can lead you to pull the handle too much, the head gets left behind and you get a bit
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snatchy with the club head. Conversely, if the swing weight is too light, you can get a bit too
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flicky throw impact which could affect the quality of the strike. So do consider swing
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weight. It is an important factor when choosing a wedge. Obviously, the fitter will guide you
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into the right swing weight for you to make sure that you're getting that consistent strike
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and angle of attack and delivery into the ball is going to give you the best results
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So just a little bonus tip on bounce when it comes to bunkers. Now think about what
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club you use mostly out of the bunkers. It's typically your highest lofted wedge and as
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result, you probably want to go for something a little bit higher and bounce, but that is
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dictated by the sand conditions that are prevailing at your course. If your sand in the course
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that you mostly play is nice and fluffy, if there's quite a lot of sand in your bunkers
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you're going to want more bounce to give you more resistance and stop the leading edge from digging. Conversely, if your bunkers are quite shallow, the sand often gets quite
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compacted, you probably want to go for less bounce to help get the club under the ball
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dependent on the kind of bunker shots you like to play in the conditions but for example this particular bunker is pretty soft, it's freshly raked, there's a decent amount of
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sand in it as you can see when you wiggle your feet. So luckily I've got quite a high
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bounce here, also quite a wide sole as well, that's going to help get better performance
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in the bunkers when the sand's like this. So that gives you confidence that you get the
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club in and the sand then out again quickly. So that concludes our look at the eight reasons why you should get custom fitted for your
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wedges. I hope you found it useful in terms of when you're getting next dialled in for your new set of wedges, some of the things that you really think about, or maybe some
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things that you hadn't considered in the past that you're going to think about when it comes
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to getting a new wedge. But if you did like the video, make sure you click the like button and comment down below. Is there anything that we've missed when it comes to choosing
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a new set of wedges? I'd love to hear from you. But that's all from me from Burley Park
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Golf Club. I'll see you next time
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