Bought the wrong flex wedge... should I return?

[jkelley9]

I had finally found the last wedge in my tm r9 set (sand wedge, 55 deg) on ebay and payed a pretty decent amount for it ($53) for being a ~4-5 year old club and being used. I'm happy with the condition, but the seller put on the page part of the listing that it was a stiff flex, but on the actual description field section it said regular flex. I took a gamble since I didn't have a lot of time to contact the seller before the auction ended... and lost. I won the auction, but turns out it has the stock shaft KBS satin steel in REGULAR flex 

So my question is, seeing as I have a pretty decent swing speed on my irons fitted for stiff steel shafts... should I play with this club? 

I think I'm reading that because it's a shorter club that you may be okay with playing different flexes on the shorter wedges, is this true? 

My options are to return the club (if they'll accept that... technically it said regular flex in the description elsewhere) and use that money towards getting fitted for one of the independent wedges (cleveland, titleist,etc) or get a new shaft on this one (kind of a waste I would think?). 

Side-note I'm actually pretty timid with my sand wedge in my current game. I usually don't attack it as hard as my other clubs above it (AW+). I hit my current SW only about 75 y full shot. My AW is 95y full. But if I ever have an approach shot between 70-80y to the center of the green (which happens frequently now) I will go with my AW, grip down, and take a 3/4 swing that I'm very comfortable with. I have a moderately HIGH ball flight so they land pretty soft. So I can cover my club gap pretty well, and very comfortably.

This may not be relevant but I'm shooting solid mid-eighties now and the area I'm losing a CONSIDERABLE amount of strokes every round being in 5-20y chip shots. Let's put it this way, if I could just HIT THE GREEN (anywhere on the green) consistently with these short chips... I could be breaking 80. I'm hitting  around 10/18 GIR usually now with a few nGIR. I tell you this because my SW is not part of my iron set, and has a "crescent" sole that like to dig hard. It has almost zero bounce. This new wedge will at least have some bounce which I'm hoping will help here. Albeit buying clubs doesnt fix games... fixing your swing fixes games 

Your input would be greatly appreciated! Before I can even play this club I will need to have it cut down and re-gripped so that why I ask now instead of just playing with it and seeing if it goes okay. 

Thanks guys and gals! 

[b101]

You'll be fine with it as it is. My gap wedge is a slightly different flex to the rest of my iron set (stiff KBS vs Project X 6.5, so losing 0.5 on the PX scale) and my sand and lob wedges are standard - I don't really see or feel any difference. I will be getting fitted for my next set of wedges in a few years, but I don't feel I'm losing much now.

Also, whilst I find it slightly hard to believe, if you're only losing shots due to 5-20y chips, shaft flex is not what matters... Check your technique against the many chipping/pitching threads and get out there and practise - it's actually relatively easy when you give it some time. Whether you have a stiff or regular shaft in your wedge won't be making a blind bit of difference with that, so don't worry and play with the wedge you spent so long trying to find 

[newtogolf]

I think in most cases golfers go with slightly stiffer wedge shafts than their regular clubs because of the way they swing their wedges.  Just like your regular clubs, it's all about how you swing.  I tend to be steeper and have a more abrupt transition with my wedges so the fitter suggested I use stiff shafts with wedges and regular for the rest of my irons. 

[mvmac]

I think you'll be fine, especially since you hit a full sand wedge 75 yards and are going to cut it down. I also know players like go with a "softer" shaft in their wedge.

[Lihu]

5 hours ago, b101 said:

You'll be fine with it as it is. My gap wedge is a slightly different flex to the rest of my iron set (stiff KBS vs Project X 6.5, so losing 0.5 on the PX scale) and my sand and lob wedges are standard - I don't really see or feel any difference. I will be getting fitted for my next set of wedges in a few years, but I don't feel I'm losing much now.

Also, whilst I find it slightly hard to believe, if you're only losing shots due to 5-20y chips, shaft flex is not what matters... Check your technique against the many chipping/pitching threads and get out there and practise - it's actually relatively easy when you give it some time. Whether you have a stiff or regular shaft in your wedge won't be making a blind bit of difference with that, so don't worry and play with the wedge you spent so long trying to find 

I've found KBS Stiff to be almost the same as PX6.5. The Stiff plus or Xstiff is about the same stiffness specification wise as the PX7.0, but KBS is much more soft feeling than either DG or PX.

I agree it shouldn't matter, though.

 

6 hours ago, jkelley9 said:

I had finally found the last wedge in my tm r9 set (sand wedge, 55 deg) on ebay and payed a pretty decent amount for it ($53) for being a ~4-5 year old club and being used. I'm happy with the condition, but the seller put on the page part of the listing that it was a stiff flex, but on the actual description field section it said regular flex. I took a gamble since I didn't have a lot of time to contact the seller before the auction ended... and lost. I won the auction, but turns out it has the stock shaft KBS satin steel in REGULAR flex 

So my question is, seeing as I have a pretty decent swing speed on my irons fitted for stiff steel shafts... should I play with this club? 

I think I'm reading that because it's a shorter club that you may be okay with playing different flexes on the shorter wedges, is this true? 

My options are to return the club (if they'll accept that... technically it said regular flex in the description elsewhere) and use that money towards getting fitted for one of the independent wedges (cleveland, titleist,etc) or get a new shaft on this one (kind of a waste I would think?). 

Side-note I'm actually pretty timid with my sand wedge in my current game. I usually don't attack it as hard as my other clubs above it (AW+). I hit my current SW only about 75 y full shot. My AW is 95y full. But if I ever have an approach shot between 70-80y to the center of the green (which happens frequently now) I will go with my AW, grip down, and take a 3/4 swing that I'm very comfortable with. I have a moderately HIGH ball flight so they land pretty soft. So I can cover my club gap pretty well, and very comfortably.

This may not be relevant but I'm shooting solid mid-eighties now and the area I'm losing a CONSIDERABLE amount of strokes every round being in 5-20y chip shots. Let's put it this way, if I could just HIT THE GREEN (anywhere on the green) consistently with these short chips... I could be breaking 80. I'm hitting  around 10/18 GIR usually now with a few nGIR. I tell you this because my SW is not part of my iron set, and has a "crescent" sole that like to dig hard. It has almost zero bounce. This new wedge will at least have some bounce which I'm hoping will help here. Albeit buying clubs doesnt fix games... fixing your swing fixes games 

Your input would be greatly appreciated! Before I can even play this club I will need to have it cut down and re-gripped so that why I ask now instead of just playing with it and seeing if it goes okay. 

Thanks guys and gals! 

Shouldn't matter too much if you don't take full swings with it other than buried bunker lies?

 

1 hour ago, newtogolf said:

I think in most cases golfers go with slightly stiffer wedge shafts than their regular clubs because of the way they swing their wedges.  Just like your regular clubs, it's all about how you swing.  I tend to be steeper and have a more abrupt transition with my wedges so the fitter suggested I use stiff shafts with wedges and regular for the rest of my irons. 

Usually, people go with stiffer on wedges, but I guess it doesn't really matter as much because most of the time you don't even take a full swing with wedges anyway.

[70sSanO]

I'm sure someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but if you are going to cut it down, couldn't you tip it and get it closer to a stiff flex.  I know that tipping a driver shaft can stiffen the flex to some degree.  Not sure it matters much on a short wedge shaft, but it probably couldn't hurt.

John

Edited May 30, 2016 by 70sSanO

[jkelley9]

9 hours ago, 70sSanO said:

I'm sure someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but if you are going to cut it down, couldn't you tip it and get it closer to a stiff flex.  I know that tipping a driver shaft can stiffen the flex to some degree.  Not sure it matters much on a short wedge shaft, but it probably couldn't hurt.

John

Interesting. I've never even heard of this term. I'm taking the club to my normal guy next to my office tomorrow morning and I'll ask him. I had a wicked failure of an experience at Golfsmith yesterday when explaining what I wanted. Which didn't seem that hard. I think both the guys were high as a kite. Very spacey. 

I also had heard that wedges are usually stiffer flex compared to the other irons (through AW) which is why I was concerned going with stiff irons and a regular flex SW since this would be the opposite. I think one (or more) brand(s) stocks wedges with "Wedge flex" which to my understanding is stiffer.

I guess I'll just get the club done and see how it goes. Thanks for the input everyone.

 

Scratch that. I just found a single uncut of the same shaft in stiff flex on ebay, that I went ahead and bought. I'll just have him do that for piece of mind 

[Lihu]

 

10 hours ago, jkelley9 said:

Interesting. I've never even heard of this term. I'm taking the club to my normal guy next to my office tomorrow morning and I'll ask him. I had a wicked failure of an experience at Golfsmith yesterday when explaining what I wanted. Which didn't seem that hard. I think both the guys were high as a kite. Very spacey. 

I hope it's not the club maker that was in that condition? In general, the salesmen don't really know anything about club making. Ask specifically for the club maker and he can do what you ask. In any case what @70sSanO suggested makes perfect sense, but I'm not sure how much you planned to cut. You'd need to cut quite a bit to get a different flex number. Here's my favorite shaft the DG.

http://www.golfshaftreviews.info/index.php/dynamic-gold-golf-club-shaft-review/

Notice that you'd need to cut an inch or so to get kind of the same flex from one to the other. The actual difference is about 2", but you have to fudge the overall effect of having a shorter shaft. For instance, S300 might be perfect for your shorter irons, but might be too flexible for the long irons. That effect will be somewhat unpredictable and might require a lot of iteration.

 

Quote

I also had heard that wedges are usually stiffer flex compared to the other irons (through AW) which is why I was concerned going with stiff irons and a regular flex SW since this would be the opposite. I think one (or more) brand(s) stocks wedges with "Wedge flex" which to my understanding is stiffer.

A modern Wedge flex has a specific kick point. They have a strange taper to help spin the ball better.

http://www.mizunoforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=1453

In the past there probably was no difference. . .

 

Quote

Scratch that. I just found a single uncut of the same shaft in stiff flex on ebay, that I went ahead and bought. I'll just have him do that for piece of mind 

That's better only more expensive, and shortening from the tip will stiffen it only a little bit.

If you are getting something like an S300, it might still not be optimal as it is generally lower launching. You might want to have a higher launching shaft for a wedge. R flex might have been okay. Give the R a good testing before switching out to see if you like the stiff more or not?

My advice is to try a bunch of wedges (used or otherwise) at your local store to find one that gives you your best launch conditions for a wedge. I haven't done this myself, but I have many friends who have gotten them fitted and they love their wedges now. The stock Mack Daddy and MD 2 seem to be perfect for me anyway. Haven't tried the others as they were not on sale, but I would guess any of the stock shafts would be fine for me.

[WUTiger]

22 hours ago, 70sSanO said:

I'm sure someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but if you are going to cut it down, couldn't you tip it and get it closer to a stiff flex. ...

If you want the flex to match your other irons, you can have it tipped. The R9 has a .370 diameter parallel tip hosel. The R9 specs sheet confirms this, and that the stock steel shaft was a KBS 90 (90 grams). (The KBS 90 and the Chrome 90 appear to be special shafts made just for TaylorMade - these two shaft offerings don't appear in the general components catalogs).

As for matching wedge flex to irons, you hear different ideas on this. Some players like the same shaft in irons and wedges, others like a heavier shaft in the specialty wedges, and still others softstep (soften the flex on) the SW and LW if they rarely hit full shots with them.

I would suggest you play a little with the R9 SW, and see if you like it as is. Then, you could get it tipped (hardstepped) if you wanted more control.

Caution on the Wedgeflex shaft you found: I was unclean on which wedgeflex shaft you had round. If this is a KBS 90 which matches your current irons, go with it. If it is a KBS Tour 90 parallel tip, it has a stiffer tip area than the KBS 90, and weighs about 100 grams.

If it's a Dynamic Golf Wedgeflex, this is probably an S200 shaft that weight about 120 grams, and would weigh a whole lot more than any other iron or wedge shaft you play. 

[newtogolf]

7 hours ago, WUTiger said:

If you want the flex to match your other irons, you can have it tipped. The R9 has a .370 diameter parallel tip hosel. The R9 specs sheet confirms this, and that the stock steel shaft was a KBS 90 (90 grams). (The KBS 90 and the Chrome 90 appear to be special shafts made just for TaylorMade - these two shaft offerings don't appear in the general components catalogs).

As for matching wedge flex to irons, you hear different ideas on this. Some players like the same shaft in irons and wedges, others like a heavier shaft in the specialty wedges, and still others softstep (soften the flex on) the SW and LW if they rarely hit full shots with them.

I would suggest you play a little with the R9 SW, and see if you like it as is. Then, you could get it tipped (hardstepped) if you wanted more control.

Caution on the Wedgeflex shaft you found: I was unclean on which wedgeflex shaft you had round. If this is a KBS 90 which matches your current irons, go with it. If it is a KBS Tour 90 parallel tip, it has a stiffer tip area than the KBS 90, and weighs about 100 grams.

If it's a Dynamic Golf Wedgeflex, this is probably an S200 shaft that weight about 120 grams, and would weigh a whole lot more than any other iron or wedge shaft you play. 

Good advice, the other popular wedge flex is the True Temper DG Spinner which is 124 grams

[jkelley9]

11 hours ago, Lihu said:

I hope it's not the club maker that was in that condition? In general, the salesmen don't really know anything about club making. Ask specifically for the club maker and he can do what you ask.

It was the salesman and the ~18 year old kid at the front that I was dealing with. As they were writing down on the ticket for the clubmaker I was watching them write the wrong stuff they interpreted incorrectly so I just said no thank you. I'll be taking it to my normal guy once my new shaft comes in tomorrow.

 

9 hours ago, WUTiger said:

If you want the flex to match your other irons, you can have it tipped. The R9 has a .370 diameter parallel tip hosel. The R9 specs sheet confirms this, and that the stock steel shaft was a KBS 90 (90 grams). (The KBS 90 and the Chrome 90 appear to be special shafts made just for TaylorMade - these two shaft offerings don't appear in the general components catalogs).

As for matching wedge flex to irons, you hear different ideas on this. Some players like the same shaft in irons and wedges, others like a heavier shaft in the specialty wedges, and still others softstep (soften the flex on) the SW and LW if they rarely hit full shots with them.

I would suggest you play a little with the R9 SW, and see if you like it as is. Then, you could get it tipped (hardstepped) if you wanted more control.

Caution on the Wedgeflex shaft you found: I was unclean on which wedgeflex shaft you had round. If this is a KBS 90 which matches your current irons, go with it. If it is a KBS Tour 90 parallel tip, it has a stiffer tip area than the KBS 90, and weighs about 100 grams.

If it's a Dynamic Golf Wedgeflex, this is probably an S200 shaft that weight about 120 grams, and would weigh a whole lot more than any other iron or wedge shaft you play. 

Yea I got the KBS 90 stock shaft for the R9 iron set, in stiff. I verified it was a 0.370 tip. I think I would rather have a stiffer wedge.

Also, I'm planning on cutting down the shaft 1/2" under standard. So not a whole lot. The shaft that's on there is definitely longer. It's more than 3/4" over standard for the R9 SW. Which is something I brought up to the salesman and he threw it on the bench and verified my suspicion. So when he was writing down that I want is 1/2" less than standard he wrote something like "cut down 1/2-inch" and I'm like /facepalm. I don't want it 1/2" from where it is now, I want to make sure it's 1/2" less than standard length. I even brought in my AW and PW to show him what steps I had between my clubs. but he started getting confused why I brought them in and kept asking me what we were going to do to those clubs. Nothing dude... just brought them for reference.

Edit: my whole point here is that I'm really not that knowledgeable or even that good of a golfer to probably be able to take advantage of a fully fitted from shaft to flex to length to everything on just a wedge. I am just making sure that my clubs are consistent between each other right now so that I have a good foundation of consistency. So it worried me that I had a regular flex in a SW which is a club I use all the time, full shots included - when my irons were in stiff. I thought it may throw my consistency off on how I swing the club to make good contact.

Edited May 31, 2016 by jkelley9

[WUTiger]

5 hours ago, jkelley9 said:

It was the salesman and the ~18 year old kid at the front that I was dealing with. As they were writing down on the ticket for the clubmaker I was watching them write the wrong stuff...

I'll be talking it to my normal guy once my new shaft comes in tomorrow. ...

I even brought in my AW and PW to show him what steps I had between my clubs. but he started getting confused why I brought them in and kept asking me what we were going to do to those clubs. Nothing dude... just brought them for reference....

Edit: my whole point here is that I'm really not that knowledgeable or even that good of a golfer to probably be able to take advantage of a fully fitted from shaft to flex to length to everything on just a wedge. I am just making sure that my clubs are consistent between each other right now so that I have a good foundation of consistency. ...

jk9,

Don't be down on yourself! You're approaching this in a systematic manner, and taking notes of what's happening.

You are learning about the ins and outs of golf clubs, and how they work. Keep it up, and you will often find you know as much - or more - about the clubs as the sales guy. Your challenge will be to find the craftsman fitters who really want to work with you to build your set.

On 5/29/2016 at 8:32 AM, jkelley9 said:

This new wedge will at least have some bounce which I'm hoping will help here. Albeit buying clubs doesnt fix games... fixing your swing fixes games 

But, having clubs that fit your swing really helps - if you practice with them post-purchase.

[jkelley9]

18 hours ago, WUTiger said:

jk9,

Don't be down on yourself! You're approaching this in a systematic manner, and taking notes of what's happening.

You are learning about the ins and outs of golf clubs, and how they work. Keep it up, and you will often find you know as much - or more - about the clubs as the sales guy. Your challenge will be to find the craftsman fitters who really want to work with you to build your set.

But, having clubs that fit your swing really helps - if you practice with them post-purchase.

Yea, I'm fortunate that I have a guy just 2 blocks from my work that has to be 75-80 years old who has his own shop, works something like 9-4:30 one-man-show who does clubmaking at ridiculously low prices. I had him put on new CP2 grips on 4 clubs, cut down 6 clubs, had him swap off some new grips I had put on old clubs to go on some new clubs I had just got, and to check all the loft/lie/length of every club in my bag to make sure they were all consistent and he did some additional cutting to correct some length errors Golfsmith made on my original fitting... all for a whopping $42. The new grips alone were about $32. So he did all that for $10. I'm pretty sure he doesn't care about the money and he just likes going to "his place" every day to "work."

The store of course is full of vintage clubs. There's very very few modern clubs in there. And by modern I mean < 10 years old.

[Lihu]

3 hours ago, jkelley9 said:

Yea, I'm fortunate that I have a guy just 2 blocks from my work that has to be 75-80 years old who has his own shop, works something like 9-4:30 one-man-show who does clubmaking at ridiculously low prices. I had him put on new CP2 grips on 4 clubs, cut down 6 clubs, had him swap off some new grips I had put on old clubs to go on some new clubs I had just got, and to check all the loft/lie/length of every club in my bag to make sure they were all consistent and he did some additional cutting to correct some length errors Golfsmith made on my original fitting... all for a whopping $42. The new grips alone were about $32. So he did all that for $10. I'm pretty sure he doesn't care about the money and he just likes going to "his place" every day to "work."

The store of course is full of vintage clubs. There's very very few modern clubs in there. And by modern I mean < 10 years old.

No joke, but I have a similar guy here 2 blocks from my work. Crown City Golf. My guy is probably only 65, although I could be wrong and he could be 77? Sorry, Richard, if you read these things. . .

Unfortunately, I'm moving to another building soon.

 

BTW, what you said about the Golfsmith is not anything like my experiences there. Strange that you had such a bad experience. . .