In this video, Neil Tappin looks at some of the factors to consider when thinking about how many wedges you should carry. He goes through a series of factors that are well worth keeping in mind - especially if you don't want to get fitted for your wedges. He offers some basic rules of thumb and some insights into his own game which should help you understand this area of your own bag line-up that little bit better.
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00:00Hello everyone, Neil Tappan here from Golf Monthly and welcome to the London Club. In this video
00:04looking at how many wedges different types of golfer should carry. It's all part of the big
00:10kind of puzzle that every golfer needs to work out. So how many fairway woods, hybrids, utility
00:16irons do you carry at the top end of the bag and then how many wedges should you have at the bottom
00:20end of the bag? And in this video we're going to take a look at some of the factors you should
00:24consider. Right, let's get started. Okay so the first thing to say is if you really want to find
00:29out exactly the best wedge lineup for your game then I would recommend going through a wedge fitting
00:34with somebody who really knows what they're doing. It's something that I did probably three years ago
00:39now and I found that it benefited me really a lot in two different ways. One, working out my pitching
00:45distances and then two, providing me with a chipping club. So my most lofted wedge had a
00:51loft bounce sole configuration that helped me hit those bunker shots and lofted chip shots around the
00:56green that little bit better. So there we go, I've said it. I know that a lot of people watching
01:01this won't want to go through a wedge fitting and if you don't then we're going to talk through some
01:05of the kind of basic principles to think about. The first is, and it's probably a bit of a
01:10generalisation but there's some truth behind it, is that longer hitters will probably require more
01:15wedges than shorter hitters. It stands to reason that if you're hitting your driver consistently
01:20300 yards then you're probably able to hit your wedge let's say 140 yards. If you've got 140 yards
01:26into the green with your pitching wedge then you've got a lot of ground to cover with your other wedges
01:31so you're likely to need more wedges than a shorter hitter who let's say only hits their pitching wedge
01:3690 yards they've got less ground to cover. Now the other thing to consider is to make sure that you have
01:42even loft gaps between your wedges. This will mean that you have even distance gaps. Now the thing that you
01:48absolutely have to avoid anywhere in your golf club set is to have two clubs that go the same distance
01:54that's such a waste and it does happen so just be mindful of that. If your lofts are too close to
01:59each other you might end up hitting two wedges, I don't know, only five yards apart from each other
02:04as I say which is a waste. So I think the first thing that I would do would be probably to figure
02:09out how far I hit my set pitching wedge. I think a lot of golf club sets they're getting stronger in
02:14lofts. I looked at one yesterday, I think it was the Callaway ST Rogue Max which has a pitching wedge
02:20of 41 degrees which is quite strong really. Mine's 46 degrees so that's something to bear in mind but
02:25I would figure out how far you carry your set pitching wedge as a kind of good starting point which
02:31is something I'm going to do here. So I've got the Garmin Approach R10 launch monitor on the ground,
02:36I've got the app running opposite me, I've got a green that's about 40 yards in length from front to back
02:42so it's a good green to give me a gauge on how far I'm hitting it. I'm going to hit one with my 46
02:47degree pitching wedge to start with. Okay I've hit that up in the air a bit so it's maybe not gone as
02:57okay that's right at the back of the green but good so that gives us an idea. The launch monitor
03:01is telling me that's carried 132. So from there I think my next thing would be to think about
03:07the most lofted wedge I'd want in my bag. So let's say there's a few different things here you're going to
03:11need a lofted wedge to help you hit bunker shots and lofted chip shots around the green so how much
03:16is the most amount of loft that you want in your hands at the bottom end of the bag. So for a lot
03:20of golfers I think a lob wedge is quite intimidating looking down on that much loft leads to kind of
03:26thin shots and chunked chip shots a lot. If you fall into that category then maybe a Sam wedge,
03:31a sort of 56 degree wedge is your most lofted wedge in your bag. So once you've worked out kind of how
03:36much loft you want to carry and hit a pitch shot with that club for me it's 58 degree and I don't tend to
03:41hit this flat out. So I think on the golf course I'd only ever probably hit this at sort of 80 percent
03:48max because otherwise it just sort of spirals up into the air a bit.
03:55Okay so I've hit that fairly well and that has carried 84 yards and therefore I would have a decision
04:03to make as to whether I'd want to hit my pitching wedge and hit half shots with my pitching wedge to
04:08fill that gap or whether I'd want to fill that with other wedges, one or two other wedges. Now
04:13it's an important point to make here would be part of this depends on where your strengths and
04:18weaknesses lie. If you're really good at those half pitch shots then maybe you don't need to carry
04:22an awful lot of wedges. Maybe you can carry more fairway woods or hybrids at the top end of the bag.
04:26For me I'm not great at half pitch shots sort of naturally and b I don't really get the time to
04:32practice them as much as I'd like so I would rather fill that gap with wedges. I've got two and they're all in
04:38at even loft gaps so they go four degrees so I go 46, 50, 54, 58. So I'm going to hit one with my 50 and see
04:49how far that carries and if we've got this right there should be a fairly even kind of spread of
04:54distance gaps between the different wedges in my bag so I'm going to hit my 50.
04:59I've hit that really well and that has gone 117. That's gone 117 and then my 54 degree wedge which is
05:15here I've hit with this. It's gone up quite high in the air that's gone up 99 yards. Hopefully that gives
05:26you an idea of the sort of thing that you're looking for. For me being a longer hitter I get a
05:31lot of shots in this kind of area a lot of shots from the kind of 100 yards 140 yard mark so having
05:37clubs that I don't have to manipulate too much that I can make a nice normal swing and hit those yardages
05:42is really important. So there you have it that's our look at how many wedges you should think about
05:47carrying. I think for most people it's a choice between two three and four wedges and I think the
05:52most popular I think the most popular setup is three wedges but there's so many individual factors
05:58here that you'll need to consider for yourself things like how far you hit the ball and your
06:01strengths and weaknesses as well. I hope you found that helpful but that's it for now from the London
06:06club. Thanks for watching. We'll see you next time.