Hit twenty full sand wedges into a screen and you have learned about one shot you play perhaps three times a round. The shots that decide the scorecard are the half swing from ninety yards, the pitch off a tight lie, and the bunker shot you are dreading.
The full swing. The only one a launch monitor is genuinely well suited to. We measure it for gapping purposes, because the distance a wedge carries at full effort sets where the top of the short-game ladder sits, and because that number is what the iron block hands over.
The partial swing. Between fifty and ninety yards, where the club is being throttled rather than swung. Spin behaviour changes here in ways the full-swing data does not predict, and the leading edge and bounce combination decides whether a slightly heavy strike is a good shot or a disaster.
The tight lie. Firm, closely mown, no cushion under the ball. This is where bounce and leading edge height either save you or produce a blade over the green, and it is the shot most golfers describe when they say they do not trust their wedges.
The bunker shot. Run in real sand, from buckets we keep sorted by course, because the coarse sand at one club and the fine sand fifteen minutes away want different soles and every chart on the subject assumes an average that neither of them is.
Not handicap, and not the number of times you have been told that high bounce is for beginners. Bounce is a relationship between how you deliver the club and what the ground under it is doing.
A golfer who takes a deep divot with a sand wedge is presenting the leading edge downward and needs sole material behind it to stop the club digging. A shallow, sweeping delivery needs the opposite, because a wide bouncy sole will skid into the middle of the ball.
Oklahoma summers produce firm, thin lies on bermuda that punish a wide sole. Spring is softer and more forgiving of one. Most golfers here are better served fitting for the firm months, since that is when the mis-hit is least survivable.
Opening the face adds effective bounce, sometimes dramatically. A golfer who plays every greenside shot square needs the bounce built into the sole; one who opens the club for anything delicate is adding it themselves and should start from less.
| Delivery | Typical divot | Starting bounce | Grind character |
|---|---|---|---|
| Steep | Deep, ball-then-turf | 12 to 14 deg | Full sole, minimal relief |
| Moderate | Shallow bruise | 8 to 12 deg | Some heel relief, mild camber |
| Shallow | Little or none | 4 to 8 deg | Heel and trailing edge relieved |
| Mixed, opens the face | Varies by shot | 6 to 10 deg | Versatile grind, narrow sole |
Fresh grooves matter most on the shots where something sits between the face and the ball: wet grass, a flyer lie, a ball with a scuff on it. From a clean, dry, tight lie the face texture and the loft are doing most of the work, and a two-season-old wedge in reasonable condition is not the reason a pitch ran through the green.
What we can measure is the decline. A wedge face gets photographed and the groove edge radius recorded at the fitting, which gives a reference point for later. When somebody comes back eighteen months on convinced the wedge has gone flat, we can compare rather than guess, and about half the time the wedge is fine and the ball model changed.
Ball choice moves wedge spin more than most component changes do. A firm distance ball and a soft urethane ball can differ by well over a thousand revolutions on a partial wedge shot, which is a bigger effect than any grind on this page. Bring a sleeve of what you play and we will measure both.
Nearly every golfer who tells us their wedges have stopped spinning has changed something other than the wedges.Why spin figures carry the widest bands →
Bring every wedge you own including the pitching wedge from your set, a sleeve of your ball, and the shoes you play in, because the bunker and tight-lie work happens outside whenever the lane is open.
Expect fewer full swings than you are used to in a fitting and a lot more short ones. Expect to spend fifteen minutes in sand. Expect at least one moment where a wedge you assumed was the problem turns out to be fine and the one next to it in the bag is the culprit.
The card carries carry medians for the full and partial shots, an effective bounce figure for each candidate rather than the stamped one, a note on your delivery, and a build spec including grind, loft, lie, length and grip. Bench regrinding is available on wedges you already own where the geometry allows it.
Who runs this block →That sentence describes most of the people who book this block, and it is a gapping and geometry problem far more often than a technique one.