wedges and irons...

I've always wondered why most irons sets include a pitching wedge and some include a gap wedge/sand wedge?  I prefer all my wedges to be the same not just for looks sake but also because it makes all the wedges the same just with different lofts/bounces.  I'd imagine that especially for higher handicappers that this would help and be much more consistent?

I've noticed that while many people change their irons, their wedges change less frequently usually because if it is not broken, then why fix it?  This makes sense to me as I've found wedges that I like a lot and have kept in the bag for a while.  So it got me to thinking if I have these wedges that I like, why do I have a PW that matches my irons?  If I like the wedges and add a PW that is the same as my GW, SW, and LW, then this could stay consistent throughout time and would be one less club I need to buy/replace when I get a new set of irons.

So I've added a 46 degree pitching wedge (Cleveland, all my wedges are, they just work for me well).  I'm guessing that it's a marketing thing for iron sets to come with a PW and some with either a GW or SW as the manufacturer does this hopefully so the consumer will purchase the additional wedges from the same manufacturer?

I've seen some wedge sets out there for purchase but not as many as I thought.  It seems there is an opportunity for a manufacturer to come out and sell a complete wedge set that includes a PW and then adds a combination of GW, SW, and LW so all wedges would be uniform?

Some consider a labeled PW at 45 deg as just another iron, and don't use it for any speciality use around the greens.

In that sense, thinking of the 45-46 deg club as just another iron, it makes sense to go with the iron set in that club.

For me, I'd like to go with the iron set all the way to 50, if I could, as the only clubs I generally use around the greens are a 55 and 60.

Retailers usually stock Iron sets that come with 8 clubs.  The 'normal' set configuration used to be 3-PW, leaving the buyer to add a gap, SW and a lob wedge to fill out the short end of the set.

Moving forward a bit, the new config seems to be 4-PW plus a GW but not a SW or LW.  Some may even start at 5-iron anymore, but not many that I've seen.

While shopping for my most recent iron set, I only wanted 6-iron through AW, or GW.  I also only wanted to pay for SIX irons rather than EIGHT irons.  No dice at local retailers who erroneously stated they could only ORDER iron sets in 8 clubs.  Not what I wanted.

Searched online retails and was able to find an iron set that included a #4 and 5 hybrid clubs and 6-AW.  Completely happy to purchase EIGHT clubs providing you allow me to configure the set to fit my needs and not buy a set where clubs are going into the scrap bag and not in my playing bag.

After the purchase, I added two additional wedges.  The TM set came with a 45* PW, a 50* AW and I added Titleist Vokey 54 and 58* wedges to complete the short end of the bag.  Golf club manufacturers need to offer the entire line of irons, wedges and hybrids by model and allow a consumer to choose as few or many clubs as they want or need.  Gone are the days of the 3-PW iron sets ... at least I hope!

dave