ODDS are your wedge lofts are messed up and it’s not your fault. Manufacturers have been strengthening the lofts on irons for decades and while there are merits and demerits to this practice, it does mean golfers need to pay more attention to how the short irons and wedges are spaced in a set. Proper spacing will produce meaningful gaps between clubs and making those distances consistent is going to yield more short shots that finish closer to the hole. Here are some hard and fast rules to help you mind the gaps.
1
Count how many clubs you want in your bag up to and including the 9-iron. Starting with your putter, if the number of clubs you’re carrying up to your 9-iron is 11, then you only have room for three wedges. If it’s 10, then you have room for four wedges. Our advice: if you only have three clubs to carry you past your 40-degree 9-iron, you’re going to be playing a lot of in-between and half shots in the scoring zone when you should be making full swings.
2
Know your pitching wedge loft. If it’s 45 degrees or less, add three more wedges that are spaced apart by no more than 4 to 5 degrees each.
3
You must have a wedge between your pitching wedge loft and your sand wedge loft. The gap wedge (usually about 50 degrees) provides a vital distance between those two clubs. Our recommendation is that you endeavour to match the gap wedge to the short irons and pitching wedge in your set because this gap wedge will also likely be a full-swing club.
4
Remember wedges can easily be bent a degree or two, strong or weak, to achieve the desired loft spacing. That means a 50-degree wedge can easily be a 51 or 49-degree club. But be aware that as you start strengthening or weakening the lofts of your high-lofted wedges, you’re also affecting the bounce angle. Every degree strong reduces bounce by a degree, and vice versa.
5
Ultra-high lofted wedges may help the ball get in the air quicker, but we think a maximum loft of 58 degrees provides the best versatility for your highest-lofted wedge and a more solid contact for optimised greenside spin. An ideal progression is for the pitching wedge to be 45 degrees, followed by a 50-degree gap wedge and complemented by 54 and 58-degree sand and lob wedges.
6
As always, get with your fitter to gain a better understanding of how your irons and wedges should work together. In fact, if you’re being fit for irons, it’s an excellent idea to add on a wedge fitting to properly fill out the rest of your bag.
