How Many Wedges Should You Carry? I Golf Monthly
In this video, Neil Tappin looks at some of the factors to consider when thinking about how many wedges you should carry. He goes through a series of factors that are well worth keeping in mind - especially if you don't want to get fitted for your wedges. He offers some basic rules of thumb and some insights into his own game which should help you understand this area of your own bag line-up that little bit better.
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00:00 Hello everyone, Neil Tappan here from Golf Monthly and welcome to the London Club. In this video
00:04 looking at how many wedges different types of golfer should carry. It's all part of the big
00:10 puzzle that every golfer needs to work out. How many fairway woods, hybrids, utility irons do you
00:16 carry at the top end of the bag and then how many wedges should you have at the bottom end of the
00:20 bag? In this video we're going to take a look at some of the factors you should consider. Right,
00:25 let's get started. Okay, so the first thing to say is if you really want to find out exactly
00:29 the best wedge lineup for your game then I would recommend going through a wedge fitting with
00:34 somebody who really knows what they're doing. It's something that I did probably three years ago now
00:39 and I found that it benefited me really a lot in two different ways. One, working out my pitching
00:44 distances and then two, providing me with a chipping club so my most lofted wedge had a
00:51 loft-bound sole configuration that helped me hit those bunker shots and lofted chip shots around
00:56 the green that little bit better. So there we go, I've said it. I know that a lot of people watching
01:01 this won't want to go through a wedge fitting and if you don't then we're going to talk through some
01:05 of the kind of basic principles to think about. The first is, and it's probably a bit of a
01:09 generalization but there's some truth behind it, is that longer hitters will probably require more
01:14 wedges than short hitters. It stands to reason that if you're hitting your driver consistently
01:19 300 yards then you're probably able to hit your wedge let's say 140 yards and if you've got 140
01:26 yards into the green with your pitching wedge then you've got a lot of ground to cover with
01:30 your other wedges so you're likely to need more wedges than a shorter hitter who let's say only
01:35 hits their pitching wedge 90 yards they've got less ground to cover. Now the other thing to consider
01:40 is to make sure that you have even loft gaps between your wedges. This will mean that you have
01:45 even distance gaps. Now the thing that you absolutely have to avoid anywhere in your golf
01:51 club set is to have two clubs that go the same distance that's such a waste and it does happen
01:56 so just be mindful of that. If your lofts are too close to each other you might end up hitting two
02:00 wedges, I don't know, only five yards apart from each other as I say which is a waste. So I think
02:06 the first thing that I would do would be probably to figure out how far I hit my set pitching wedge.
02:11 I think a lot of golf club sets they're getting stronger in lofts. I looked at one yesterday,
02:16 I think it was the Callaway ST Rogue Max which has a pitching wedge of 41 degrees which is quite
02:21 strong really, mine's 46 degrees so that's something to bear in mind but I would figure
02:25 out how far you carry your set pitching wedge as a kind of good starting point which is something
02:31 I'm going to do here. So I've got the Garmin Approach R10 launch monitor on the ground,
02:36 I've got the app running opposite me, I've got a green that's about 40 yards in length from front
02:41 to back so it's a good green to give me a gauge on how far I'm hitting it. I'm going to hit one
02:45 with my 46 degree pitching wedge to start with. Okay I've hit that up in the air a bit so it's
02:54 maybe not gone as... okay that's right at the back of the green, good so that gives us an idea. The
03:00 launch monitor is telling me that's carried 132. So from there I think my next thing would be to
03:05 think about the most lofted wedge I'd want in my bag. So let's say there's a few different things
03:10 here, you're going to need a lofted wedge to help you hit bunker shots and lofted chip shots around
03:15 the green so how much is the most amount of loft that you want in your hands at the bottom end of
03:19 the bag? So for a lot of golfers I think a lob wedge is quite intimidating, looking down on that
03:23 much loft leads to kind of thin shots and chunked chip shots a lot. If you fall into that category
03:30 then maybe a Sam wedge, a sort of 56 degree wedge is your most lofted wedge in your bag.
03:34 So once you've worked out kind of how much loft you want to carry,
03:38 hitting a pitch shot with that club for me it's 58 degree and I don't tend to hit this flat out
03:42 so I think on the golf course I'd only ever probably hit this at sort of
03:46 80% max because otherwise it just sort of spirals up into the air a bit.
03:51 Okay so I've hit that fairly well and that has carried 84 yards and therefore I would have a
04:02 decision to make as to whether I'd want to hit my pitching wedge and hit half shots with my
04:07 pitching wedge to fill that gap or whether I'd want to fill that with other wedges, one or two
04:12 other wedges. Now it's important point to make here would be part of this depends on where your
04:18 strengths and weaknesses lie. If you're really good at those half pitch shots then maybe you
04:21 don't need to carry an awful lot of wedges, maybe you can carry more fairway woods or hybrids at the
04:25 top end of the bag. For me I'm not great at half pitch shots sort of naturally and B) I don't
04:31 really get the time to practice them as much as I'd like so I would rather fill that gap with
04:36 wedges. I've got two and they're all in an even loft gap so they go four degrees so I go 46, 50,
04:44 54, 58. So I'm going to hit one with my 50 and see how far that carries and if we've got this right
04:51 there should be a fairly even kind of spread of distance gaps between the different wedges in my
04:57 bag. So I'm going to hit my 50. I've hit that really well and that has gone 117. That's gone
05:08 117 and then my 54, 54 degree wedge which is here I'll hit with this. It's gone up quite high in the
05:23 air. That's gone up 99 yards. Hopefully that gives you an idea of the sort of thing that you're
05:28 looking for. For me being a longer hitter I get a lot of shots in this kind of area, a lot of shots
05:33 from the kind of 100 yards 140 yard mark so having clubs that I don't have to manipulate too much so
05:39 I can make a nice normal swing and hit those yardages is really important. So there you have
05:44 it that's our look at how many wedges you should think about carrying. I think for most people it's
05:48 a choice between two, three and four wedges and I think the most popular setup is three wedges but
05:56 there's so many individual factors here that you'll need to consider for yourself. Things like
06:00 how far you hit the ball and your strengths and weaknesses as well. I hope you found that helpful
06:04 but that's it for now from the London Club. Thanks for watching, we'll see you next time.