Opinions on Pinemeadow 68* Wedge

Hello fellow Sand Trappers,

What's your opinion on the Pinemeadow 68* Wedge? (You can find it on amazon if you do a quick search for it).

As a beginner, I've hit a 56* wedge semi-successfully for 60 yard pitches, but I always seem to top my chip shots that are about 20 feet from the hole (this usually happens when I hit it right outside the green or the ball rolls past the green back onto the second or 3rd cuts).

I'd like to have a club that I can use to chip those short shots onto the green and close to the hole, and I'm not sure if this wedge would help. What's your opinion and what club do you prefer for those kinds of shots?

Thanks in advance for your help.

Regards,

Dan

68 degrees? I think you're somewhat likely to hit it straight up your own nose!

Adding loft isn't going to help with topped/bladed shots because you're hitting them off the leading edge, not the club face itself. You'll be much better served working on technique and learning to use the bounce on the club to give yourself some margin for error than you will be by buying another wedge.

http://thesandtrap.com/t/39411/quickie-pitching-video

http://thesandtrap.com/t/54556/short-gametrajectories

Thanks Stretch!

I'll practice some short game pitching skills with a regular wedge before considering a high lofted wedge. By the way, I agree with you about hitting the ball straight up, that's why I wanted to know if anyone has used a higher than 60* wedge before and what kind of up/down motion they got with it.

Once again, thanks for your help!

A 68 degree wedge will probably put you 20 yards through the green when you skull it or 10 feet in front of you when you chunk it.

There is absolutely no need for a 68 degree wedge for anyone.

It's a (poor) solution looking for a problem that doesn't exist.

Thanks for your opinion Shorty (cool avatar btw).

Which club do you personally usually use for these kinds of shots?

Depends on the surface. Anything from a putter to a sand wedge.

Whatever I feel confident with. Most probably a gap wedge, unless it has to go over a bunker.

This... whatever will get the job done! It sounds like practice is what you need not a new wedge so I'd recommend some time at the practice green.

I actually own said club; I bought it knowing that it wasn't available anywhere else and it was quite a unique club. Here are my thoughts:

-It has no bounce, just a somewhat blunt leading edge. The hosel is weighty and the back of the whole wedge has a bit of extra metal. The lack of bounce, combined with a lot of offset, makes it very clumsy if used like other wedges.

-Distance wise; If I make a crazy swing and deloft the club, trying to hit the short club as far as possible, I can get just 50 yards of distance. A normal full swing goes about 20 yards for me, whereas I can hit my 56 over 100 and my driver 280+.

-It was 20$, so I bought it as a toy since I didn't mind not keeping it in the bag. For that price, it wasn't a huge waste of money, but I wouldn't pay any more than that. I also wouldn't buy it now, having tried it.

-Pinemeadow's workmanship and prices are pretty OK, but they use poor quality components IMO. I use Gigagolf clubs myself, which are clones, but they are better quality, have cheaper options to upgrade the components, and offer every club individually. This particular club uses an Apollo shaft, which is a crappy manufacturer compared to True Temper, KBS, Nippon, etc. The grip is cheap and won't last long at all, and the finish is scratched far too easily.

-The amount of loft makes you either flip like crazy, which is a poor technique and not consistent, or blade the ball. You can get a nice high approach for 20 yards, or blade it 100 from the same swing. This wedge has made me blade the ball on numerous occasions, far more often on the course than it has helped. It does go incredibly high, though. However, I feel that a lot of the energy from the shot is lost due to the sheer loft of the club; it just doesn't compress the ball.

-For partial shots and chipping, the ball doesn't go anywhere unless you apply some power. A chip with a 56 that goes 3 feet and rolls a bit will go about 6 inches and stop with the 68. I have used it in a high lipped bunker, and it hit high enough to get me out, but I had to pick the ball off the sand, a very tough shot. It has no real utility in the short game because it doesn't pop the ball up; it feels pretty dead unless you hit it with some gusto, and using enough force will bring a bladed shot 40+ yards too far into play.

-For anyone thinking they can spin the ball with this wedge, I advise you to look elsewhere. The wedge's grooves and face are mediocre at best for spin, and don't wear well. You can get great spin from this wedge if you swing hard, but the spin isn't controllable. Loft is nice to have for spinning the ball, but it's not the only factor and the idea anyone can spin the ball with a super high loft wedge is a myth.

I once hit a poor driver on a long par 4, then hit a great 3w off the deck to roll over the green from quite a ways away. I was 4 yards behind the fringe, on an OK lie, hitting to a downhill green. Instead of popping my SW onto the green, I tried to hit a half shot with my 68. I bladed the thing 20 yards into the fairway, ruining the last hole of the day. If I'd hit my SW, even a crappy shot, I'd have had a par putt. Instead I tried to use my 68 and cost myself 2 strokes. This is what happens with this club when you try to use it. I would say that it's a great tool for escaping the trees, since you will either hit it 30 yards forward and twice the height if any tree, or blade it and call it a punch out. Either outcome would probably put you in the fairway... So on shots where either trajectory will be a good result, fire away.

That said, feel free to pick up a 60 or even a 62 degree wedge if you want, just understand their limitations and be ready to leave it at home when you hit the course. The 68, however, is a flawed product and really isn't useful; I do carry it in my bag sometimes if I really have extra space (par 3 courses, for example), but I'd just as soon save the weight.

Also, chipping and putting both suck and can bring an otherwise good player to his knees. Find a technique that works, and really be consistent with it. You can learn the touch involved with those shots from practice and trying different proven methods. Trying to hit a tour style spinning wedge will rarely help unless you have mastered the game, and play on fast greens. Pros don't use spin unless they know that a normal shot won't stay near the hole.

I used to have one of these, my father uses it now.  Its a great club when you hit it flush but the loft is so extreme that there isnt much margin for error.  Most of the shots that I hit with it were either skulls that went 50 yards farther than I planned or the club would slide right under the ball and it would go about 10 yards.

Just take your 60 degree, open it up and you pretty much have the same thing.

I can't say I agree; you really can't hit an opened wedge of any kind off a tight lie easily, but this club does work for a flop type shot off a tight lie. Not that it's ever useful to hit a flop off the apron...

The 58-62 degree wedge has bounce, even a small amount of bounce will make it more useful than this club. You can't hit this 68 out of rough, it just digs or thins the ball. The back of it looks like  half an egg, about 4mm thick at the center. Terrible design, really, but you could use it for tearing up a mini golf course.

58° is my limit for turf wedges.  I also bag a dedicated sand iron, the loft of which I don't even know.

Thanks for your replies gentlemen,

My buddy really wanted to try the 68* wedge, so we ordered it off amazon. It's arriving today and I'll let you guys know what I think a little later.

Seems a little extreme for me.  I've never found my 60˚ hard to hit, so I'd believe that one could get consistent with the 68˚, but it just seems like it'll be less consistent and doesn't really give you any shots that you can't hit with a low bounce 58˚ or 60˚.  How often, even at a tough course with very fast greens, might you end up green side with some shot that you could hit close with the 68˚ but could only run past with the 60˚?  I can't imagine it'd be more often than something like every 3rd or 4th round.  Just seems that's not worth one of 14 clubs.

So once it came in the mail I automatically opened it and went to the backyard. Note that my backyard here in chicago is a bunch of dead grass on frozen dirt. Anyways, I set up a bucket at the end of the yard and attempted a few chip shots from about 20 yards away. After a few shots and getting used to the weight and bounce of the club let me tell you I LOVE it. It does exactly what I wanted it to do which is pop the ball up and have it roll for about a foot.

The reason why I love this motion is because it seems every time I have to chip in a shot and I try to use any wedges like the P or S, I tend to top the ball or hit it past the hole and roll it off the other side of the green. I understand from previous posts this may just be a lack of practice given that I'm still learning the basic fundamentals of golf; however, for the meantime this club seems to be serving the purpose I was looking for.

Yes, there were times I would top it and it would shoot 30 yards straight past my yard, but as long as I got under it and made decent contact, the ball flew in the direction I wanted it to.

I appreciate all your opinions and am happy to answer questions or post a video of me using it if anyone would like.

Thanks!

Haven't tried that one yet Beachcomber, but I'll definitely make it a priority once we get out of this 30* weather!

So far I've only played about 6 courses the past 6 months (not including 3 disney courses I did a few weeks ago - palm, magnolia and osprey ridge). My favorite chicago course so far is Eaglewood in Itasca. I'd say that's my favorite because that was my first full 18 hole golf course.

Definitely check it out.  It's a great course in Mundelein... Which is about 35 to 40 minutes away from Itasca.

http://www.pinemeadowgc.com/home

They are very strict on making your turn at ~ 2hrs to 2:20... But other than that... One of the better public courses in the area.

Sure, but that is true of any wedge at all (or club, really, for that matter).  If you hit short game shots with either your weight back or your right shoulder below your left, you will constantly struggle with inconsistency.  What you are doing (getting the ball in the air by hitting "under" the ball) is an inconsistent way to hit short game shots.  Good shot game shots post the weight on the left side for the whole swing, have a spine tilt left, and have very crisp *downward* contact between the wedge and the ball.  You should never feel like you are getting your wedge "under" the ball in the short game - its really hard to develop a feel for distance that way.

I'd really recommend buying / reading either of these (or better yet, both) rather than a different wedge:

http://www.amazon.com/Dave-Pelzs-Short-Game-Bible/dp/0767903447/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid;=1330611502&sr;=8-1

http://www.amazon.com/Art-Short-Game-Tour-Tested-Secrets/dp/1592402925/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie;=UTF8&qid;=1330611540&sr;=1-2

or the easiest to understand / use immediately:

http://www.amazon.com/Secrets-Short-Game-Phil-Mickelson/dp/0061860921/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie;=UTF8&qid;=1330611570&sr;=1-1

Hitting down on the ball makes it pop up from all lies with consistency.  Scooping the ball (the feeling of getting the blade under the ball) doesn't work from several lies, and you have to hit it basically perfectly to get a good shot.  With a downward strike using the bounce, you have a huge margin for error (because the bounce will slide and not dig).