We have a lot of students who come out for golf lessons or classes who are brand new to the game and don’t know the difference between their clubs. Additionally, we have a ton of seasoned golfers who often get confused by the amount of variations of wedges that they might have in their bag. Your wedges might have a letter or a number on them. The varying degrees of loft can be quite overwhelming. Here’s a standard chart of the typical wedges you might have in your bag:

• Pitching Wedge - 43-47 degrees

• Gap Wedge - 47-52 degrees

• Sand Wedge - 54-56 degrees

• Lob Wedge - 58-62 degrees

First of all, as a new golfer, make sure you don’t have redundancy in your bag. You might have multiple clubs that are so close in loft that it’s completely unnecessary to have both. So check your lofts on your clubs. If your club has a letter instead of a number, you can have your club checked by someone who builds or repairs clubs to ensure that you have what you need in your bag.

The reason why this topic is so confusing is because of marketing.

It used to be that a pitching wedge was 50 degrees of loft, a 9 iron was 46 degrees, and an 8 iron would be 42 degrees. That pitching wedge would be enough loft that you would be able to hit a nice high shot that lands softly (known as a pitch shot) hence the name pitching wedge. Then you would have a sand wedge that would normally be 56 degrees. Just from your pitching wedge to your sand wedge would be a little bit of a stretch (*or gap) between the lofts. The manufacturers were trying to sell more golf clubs and probably sitting around the room trying to figure out how to sell more clubs by giving golfers what they want.

What do golfers want? They want more distance.

So they said, if we start making the lofts a little stronger, people would think they were hitting the clubs much longer. This continued happening until the pitching wedge became generally around 46 degrees which then popularized the club known as the gap wedge (also known as an alternate or utility wedge). It is a wedge that’s in between the pitching wedge and the sand wedge.

So what wedges do we need in our bag?

You absolutely need a 54 to 56 degree sand wedge in your bag. It’s an absolute necessity. You also should have a gap wedge. And then more than likely you will have a pitching wedge which hits more like an iron now than a wedge. You might also be tempted to have a 60 degree lob wedge in your bag. The actual area to effectively hit the ball solidly on a 60 degree lob wedge is very small so it becomes extremely tricky to hit well. You would do well to take the 60 out of your bag which will also help with some indecision you might have on which club to use.

Feel free to respond with any questions about wedges. Don’t forget, we go live on Youtube on Thursday, May 26th at 4 pm EST to talk more about this topic.

During the winter months while you are stuck inside, there is a way you can work on your short game. Every person can do this to work on your chipping inside your home. Here’s a great tip to work on your chipping.

Tip #1:

Starting off, don’t use a ball or any technology, just your club. We are going to start off with an alignment stick or some type of stick that you can use in place of it. I am going to take it underneath the grip of my club and I am going to hold the stick and my club together at the same time. When I set up, the end of the stick is out ahead of me. I am going to make my chipping stroke and practice making that stroke without allowing the stick to hit me in the side. We call this the punisher drill. You can do this without a ball and without a hitting net and you will see a dramatic improvement in your impact position in your chip shots. The trick with the punisher drill is to keep your weight in your front side throughout the swing to avoid having that stick hit you in the side at impact.

Tip #2:

Great Chipping with At Home Practice

This tip is going to require the use of some technology and some equipment. We are going to use a ball in this drill. You can use a foam ball which will allow you to avoid the use of a net. However, if you have the ability to use the Net Return and real golf balls, I highly recommend it. It will last you a long time. You can also download the PerfectMotion App. You can get the first two weeks free on the app and after that it is $6 per month. Under the PerfectMotion app, you do an evaluation session for chipping with no ball. I will also check mark video snapshots and start at Skill Level 1. Hit start session. You can choose 5 or 10 swings to capture but for the purposes of this video, I chose 5 swings to capture. Also keep in mind when using the app, especially if you aren’t using a ball that the app recognizes the completion of your swing based on your head position, so make sure you follow the ball the same way you would if you were hitting a real shot. On purpose for the video, I created a swing flaw and I was trying to move away from the ball at impact. You can look at each one of your motion maps to see what your motion is doing during the swing and look at the comparison to the motion map of a tour pro. So now I am moving into working with a ball and I have changed the skill level to 3. You will be able to look at the snapshots of your actual shot to analyze anything you think you might be able to do better. This is a way for you to have some really productive practice and really focused practice sessions especially if you are having to work on your game inside.