Difference between "A" Wedge and Pitching Wedge?

[Slushy]

Before the last 6 months I golfed probably once a year.  The last 6 months, myself and a couple of friends have been golfing on a weekly basis.  I'm slowly replacing 20-25 year old clubs with new ones.  I just bought a used set of Callaway X Hot irons.  I currently have the X2 hot woods and driver that I love, but the X Hot irons were too good of deal to pass up.

My question is what is an "A" Wedge used for?  Honestly I had never heard of one so I'm wondering in what situations you would use an "A" wedge instead of a PW or an SW?

Thanks.....

[inthehole]

"A" wedge is commonly called a Gap wedge.   It's usually 50° loft.    It fits right between & bridges the GAP between your pitching wedge (45°) and your sand wedge (55°).

[Slushy]

So is this like a chip club for when you are just off the green (within 0-20 yards)?

[dkolo]

36 minutes ago, Slushy said:

So is this like a chip club for when you are just off the green (within 0-20 yards)?

It's whatever you want it to be. You can use it for that. I use my gap wedge for most of my chipping. But that's really up to your preference. Big picture, it's just a club that's meant to go shorter than your pitching wedge but farther than your sand wedge. Manufacturers have started including these in sets because they've been increasing the lofts of the irons to make them go farther. The result was that the PW of many sets had started to get into where 9 irons used to be, while sand wedges remained about 56°. This created a gap in lofts and so there was a need for a wedge to fill that gap. Different manufacturers call it an Approach Wedge, Gap Wedge, Utility Wedge, etc. Same thing.

[Dave2512]

Funny all the renaming due to the arms race. This years model is 15 yards longer! Well yeah because this years model's PW was last year's 9i.

Personally I don't care what the club has stamped on it. I chip with 8i-58, pitch with 50-58 and every club has a full swing function.

[Mr. Desmond]

1 hour ago, Slushy said:

Before the last 6 months I golfed probably once a year.  The last 6 months, myself and a couple of friends have been golfing on a weekly basis.  I'm slowly replacing 20-25 year old clubs with new ones.  I just bought a used set of Callaway X Hot irons.  I currently have the X2 hot woods and driver that I love, but the X Hot irons were too good of deal to pass up.

My question is what is an "A" Wedge used for?  Honestly I had never heard of one so I'm wondering in what situations you would use an "A" wedge instead of a PW or an SW?

Thanks.....

Use it to fill the distance gap - it's just an iron - it may be a 50 degree (or close to it). It is also called a gap wedge to fill the gap between a 45 PW and and a 56 SW.

[Slushy]

Great, thanks for all the info.  I go on Thursdays so I'll get a chance to use it!

[Grumpter]

Looks like their A wedge is 5 degrees higher than the pitching wedge. If you scroll down the page a bit on this link you can see the specs.

http://www.callawaygolfpreowned.com/golf-clubs/iron-sets/irons-x-hot-2013.html

[dkolo]

9 minutes ago, Mr. Desmond said:

Use it to fill the distance gap - it's just an iron - it may be a 50 degree (or close to it). It is also called a gap wedge to fill the gap between a 45 PW and and a 56 SW.

Yeah, as chunky as most manufacturers make their matched iron set wedges, the A wedge may as well just be called an 11-iron. Taylormade made their wedges a bit more bladed beginning with the Speedblades, but that's more of an exception to the rule from what I've seen.

[DrvFrShow]

If my PW is my 115 yd club, my GW or AW is my 103 yd club.

[WUTiger]

The A wedge has been variously called the Attack wedge or the Approach wedge by OEM marketing genies.

For some iron models I liked the AW (SLDR), others I didn't (Callaway X20).

Some TST players blend the PW and AW: go with 48*, plus a 54* and 60* in their wedge mix.

[gregsandiego]

The golf industry really needs to form a standards body and unify some terminology. It's out of control. They can't even decide if a number system or the loft angle should be used.

[iacas]

2 minutes ago, gregsandiego said:

The golf industry really needs to form a standards body and unify some terminology. It's out of control. They can't even decide if a number system or the loft angle should be used.

That wouldn't work.

The Titleist CB and MB were 2° in loft apart, but could be blended at any club because they had nearly identical launch conditions. The lower CG in the CB helped launch the ball higher than the equivalent (and 2° weaker lofted) MB.

Add in the fact that shaft flex can lead to changes in delivered loft… and length changes things, clubhead speed changes how all of those things work, etc. There's no real way to have a standard.

[MrDC]

PW is a 10 iron, gap or A is an 11 iron.

Edited December 8, 2015 by MrDC

[Natural Patrick]

I have one and the Taylor made rep called it an Approach wedge. Regardless, I hit mine about 10yds shorter than my regular wedge. I have 2 other wedges that I refer to as Gap and Lob.

[gregsandiego]

22 hours ago, iacas said:

That wouldn't work.

The Titleist CB and MB were 2° in loft apart, but could be blended at any club because they had nearly identical launch conditions. The lower CG in the CB helped launch the ball higher than the equivalent (and 2° weaker lofted) MB.

Add in the fact that shaft flex can lead to changes in delivered loft… and length changes things, clubhead speed changes how all of those things work, etc. There's no real way to have a standard.

Well for starters they could label both the club numbe/name e.g. PW, as well as angle i.e. 45 deg on every club head.  At least we'd know the manufacturer's intention.

 

 

 

[iacas]

Just now, gregsandiego said:

Well for starters they could label both the club numbe/name e.g. PW, as well as angle i.e. 45 deg on every club head.  At least we'd know the manufacturer's intention.

That's not any more of a standard than what we have now. You can write the loft on the clubhead all you want, but Titleist has clubs that launch at the same angle with different static lofts…

[gregsandiego]

2 minutes ago, iacas said:

That's not any more of a standard than what we have now. You can write the loft on the clubhead all you want, but Titleist has clubs that launch at the same angle with different static lofts…

What do you mean by angle, vs "static loft" ?