Wedge Fitting
Wedges are the clubs golfers buy on impulse and fit by accident. Bounce, grind, loft spacing and shaft weight all interact, and getting them wrong is why so many bags contain a lob wedge that never comes out of the bag.
Bounce Is Matched to Two Things
The ground you play on, and the way your hands deliver the club. Neither can be guessed from a handicap. A player who slides the club along the surface needs the sole to be relieved so the leading edge can get under the ball. A player who drives the club into the turf needs enough bounce to stop the leading edge digging.
Around the Piedmont we deal with bermuda that goes tight and firm through summer and dormant, thin cover through winter, plus a lot of clay underneath. That combination punishes too much bounce in the dry months and too little in the wet ones. We fit to the middle of your season, not to whatever the conditions are on the day you visit.
Grind Is the Part Nobody Explains
Grind is simply what has been removed from the sole after casting or forging, and it decides how the club behaves when the face is open. A wedge with material relieved from the heel will sit flush when you lay it back for a flop; one with a full sole will lift the leading edge and invite a thin. We put wedges on real turf and watch what the sole does, because this is impossible to judge from a product photograph.
Loft Gaps Start at the Pitching Wedge
Modern iron sets have strengthened pitching wedge lofts by several degrees over the last twenty years without anyone announcing it. That has quietly opened a large hole between the pitching wedge and whatever comes next. We start the gapping conversation by measuring the loft actually on your pitching wedge — on the gauge, not off the sole stamp — and work down from there.
Shaft Weight in the Short Clubs
Wedge shafts should usually be heavier than the shafts in your short irons, not lighter. A heavier wedge shaft slows the hands slightly and improves distance control on partial swings, which is what this end of the bag is actually for. Every wedge we build gets frequency checked so a set of three behaves like a set rather than three unrelated clubs.
Session Facts
We Fit the Half Shot Too
Full wedge shots are the easy part. The session spends real time on the fifty and seventy-yard shots, because that is where distance control gets decided and where shaft weight and swing weight make the most obvious difference.
What Gets Decided, in Sequence
Wedge Questions
Three wedges or four?
Depends on the size of the gap under your pitching wedge and whether you would rather carry an extra long club. We map both options in the session and let you decide with the yardages in front of you.
Do wedges really wear out?
The grooves do, and faster than most people expect if you practise a lot. A wedge used heavily will lose meaningful spin within a couple of seasons. Bring yours in and we will look at the face before you spend anything.
Can you bend a wedge to close a gap instead of buying one?
Within reason, yes. Two degrees either way is routine on most forged wedges. Beyond that you start moving the bounce enough to change how the club works, so we will tell you when bending stops being the sensible answer.
I am fine from turf but hopeless from sand. What should I look at?
Bounce and grind, in that order, and it is a quick diagnosis. We have sand in the bay for exactly this, and it is usually apparent inside ten shots whether the club is fighting you.