Wedge bounce and picking right club from different lies?

I tried for so long to find a wedge that will do everything from 50 and in, and give you confidence. We're talking about a 19 yr search of running through almost every wedge out there. Some are good ... for a while ... but they were all eventually lacking as I developed a short game.

If you want to spend less money in the long run, and I mean a lot less money, get fit for an Edel Wedge (the cast version) in at least your 58-60 wedge. The fit will depend on your swing/turf interaction. Try www.edelgolf.com and find the wedge section. Even the leading edge of their high bounce wedges hug the ground - that breeds confidence.

Remember, bounce does not mean it will cause the club to "bounce." It means if  you use bounce correctly, the bounce will help the club glide and offer forgiveness.

If you don't want to go the Edel route, I'd suggest a wedge with a high bounce but grinding on the heel, toe, trailing edge to make it versatile - something like a Vokey 58-12, 60-10, Callaway 58/14, 60-14, Ping .... etc.

Bounce is your friend, don't fear the bounce :p

Actually i use bounce in every situation. You can take a high bounce club and hit it off a cart path if you want.

Check out the pitching videos done by Erik, some great info on there.

Like the others said, bounce is your friend.  My wedges are all 10* of bounce, which seems to work well.  I feel that it still allows me to open up the face and really go under the ball to hit a high shot but its still enough bounce where it gives me a bit of help when I hit the shot fat or in soft conditions.

You may also want to try some of the dual sole wedges, that have some of the heel cut away such as the Nike VR Pro DS or TM ATV.  With the cutaway in the sole, it makes it so that the club really hugs the ground when you open up the face and makes it easier to hit a flop shot.

I dont know if Bridgestone still uses a dual sole in their wedges.  I know that the WCDs had that feature but I dont recall if the J40s do.

focus on what your wedge does on a full swing and document that. My 52-4 goes 105 yards on a full swing and my 58-8 goes 85 yards. I play to these yardages on my lay ups. I always want to be taking a consistent swing at the ball when i'm hitting my wedges.

I have yet to come across a shot where I NEED low bounce.  Just look at the extremes:  High bounce is a necessity form bunkers to keep from digging in, and if you saw Phil in Florida earlier this year hit one off concrete with a high bounce wedge, you know it's not a detriment there either.  And if it works from those extremes, it works on everything in between  If you want low bounce, just push your hands forward.

So, to answer your question, from the fairway outside of 40 yards, I'm using my 59 lob wedge until I get to about 90 yards, then I'm using my 54.5 sand wedge to 110.  Inside of 40 yards I'm pitching nearly everything in sight using either of those clubs (usually the 54.5 cuz it has more bounce).

Low bounce does make it easier to get under the ball on a tight lie, especially when you open up the face.

this is a myth. Look at the video above, massive amounts of bounce, on a green, no divot, got underneath the ball.

When you have low bounce, lets say a PW with 6 degrees of bounce, this is only useful when taking full shots that it helps the club glide through the ground with the divot. This is why a lot of iron companies have been more bounce on there irons.

Second, you can take any club you want, and take bounce off. Just lean the shaft forward a bit, and you take bounce off. This is why you can take a sandwedge, put the ball in the back of your stance, lean the club handle forward, you effectively took all the bounce off the club. When you do this, you bring the leading edge into play and you can duff chips really easily.

For 50 yards, I like to hit a pitch shot with my 50 degree wedge with the club going back to about 9:30.

Quote:

Low bounce does make it easier to get under the ground on a tight lie ....

Fixed that for you.

Quote:

Originally Posted by iacas

I will point out too that a year or two ago when nevets88 was here, we hit balls off cart paths, hard pan, sticky firm dirt (slightly wet), etc. with high-bounce wedges. Super easy thing to do if you know how.

I have an old junky wedge (OK, confession time, it's not that junky, its about a 12 year old 588 RTG, but it's a 53* and I never had much use for it) that sits in the toybox in our backyard with all of the kids outside toys.  When we are goofing around in the backyard, I like to hit plastic balls with that thing, and I will hit them off the concrete all the time.  I would have never tried it with nice clubs (or nice concrete for that matter), but now that I have that one, I can attest, it's really flippin' easy to do.  Really easy.

Back to the original post.   What are the options?   My first inclination would be to hit about a half swing with my Ping square groove pitching wedge or a 3/4 swing with my 60* lob wedge if I had it along which I usually don't.   Second thought and maybe the better percentage shot would be to chip it, with maybe a 5-7 iron, possibly from the rough too depending on how thick the rough is -- if chipping is feasible and you can take a run onto the green.   If the rough were real heavy one might use a small headed wood, like my little TaylorMade cleek.

As for bounce, sure you can deloft a bouncy wedge, but then you have a delofted wedge, your 56* is more like a 48* delofted.    If you have a 64* lob wedge, you can probably hit it better delofted to maybe 56* than not delofted :), but I don't own a 64* and often don't carry my 60*.

Yes I can hit a ball pretty high if I hood the clubface and with backspin and good direction control too, but you may want to pitch it higher and that means no delofting.

As for Phil and the concrete, did he hood the club and hit the ball with a mostly forward motion or hit down against the concrete (wrist sprain & sparks)?    If the former, couldn't he have done the same with a 7-iron as a delofted wedge?

This is West Texas and many of the courses around here are hardpan, lush turf being the exception, and that is why I like one wedge that doesn't have much bounce.   Years ago I got one of those Tiger Shark triple action wedges that you can shave with they have so little bounce, but because the leading edge is curved, you can't contact the ball toward the toe or shank without disaster.      So my fav mid wedge is a light weight Hogan fifty-three with very little bounce that I can nip up a ball with with zero divot.   Then I have a heavier 56* sand wedge with bounce for excavation work.

So y'all may be right about bounce never being yore enemy, but my gut don't buy it.

Nope ...