What Is The Ideal Wedge Distance Setup?

In this video, PGA Professional Nick Drane explains the keys to wedge distances and how to find the right set up for you.

Transcript

00:00Hi, my name's Nick Drane. I'm a PGA professional and a master fitting specialist here at the

00:09Titleist Performance Center. In this video, we're going to talk about the ideal wedge

00:13setup for your bag. These four have been properly fitted for myself. However, you can see there

00:18are numerous options available and you need to go and get fitted properly by a PGA professional

00:23to ensure you have the right bag setup. The ideal wedge setup from your pitching wedge

00:27will increase by four to six degrees to give you a difference of about 15 yards to get

00:32the appropriate distance gapping for your short game. For example, my wedge setup, I

00:38have a 44 degree pitching wedge. I then go up to a 48 degree gap wedge followed by 54

00:44degrees and then my lob wedge at 58. In my bag, I have four wedges which have been properly

00:49fitted for myself. However, it's important that you get fitted because three or even

00:54five wedges is sometimes best suited to some golfers. I'm now going to talk to you about

00:58the technique that I use to manipulate distances. With my four wedges in my bag, I have a full

01:07swing that I use for each wedge that gives me one distance. I then use a grip down slightly

01:11narrow stance that gives me a secondary shorter distance. For my full swing with my wedge,

01:16I set up like so, grip it at the end of the club, ball position in the middle of my stance,

01:23make my normal full swing and a full finish. For my secondary distance, I hold the club in the

01:36middle of the grip, I narrow my stance and that's going to give me a shorter swing and more of a

01:45three-quarter follow through. The reason why these two techniques give me different distances

01:52is because when I grip the club at the end of the grip, I get a wider arc that's going to give me

01:58more speed. When I grip the club further down, I actually get a narrower arc which produces less

02:05speed. These four golf clubs with these two techniques give me eight distances that allow

02:10me to hit more shots closer to the flag and score better.