Need help with a Gap wedge

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By Jess P

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  • 15 Replies
  1. Jess P

    Jess P

    My current wedge setup is :

    47*(PW) - Mizzy MP68 w/ KBS Tour XStiff soft stepped 1x | 120yards

     54.11 -  Vokey | Wedge flex shaft(?) | 90 yards

    60.04 - Vokey | Wedge flex shaft(?) | 75 yards

    I'm more a digger with my wedges.  Inside of 75 yards I almost eclusively use my 60* because I can hit a low runner and a high flop.  I use all my wedges out of sand.  The PW was part of a fitted set and I love that thing.

    My problem is my gap wedge.  I really want a 100y GW.  Previous to my current 54.11 I was playing a vokey 52.08 with an S200 shaft.  I'm not sure if it was the shaft or what was going on but I hit that 110-115, almost the same as my PW but higher.  Also, I could hear the ball spinning off the club face with full swing shots (which is what I mostly use the GW for anyway) and in the wind it was tough to play.

    I've had all the lofts verified and even tried having my 52.08 bent to 53* with little luck. 

    I'm open to any advice but this sounds like maybe a shaft issue?  What exactly is the wedge flex? Given what I am using on my irons at about a 63 frequency, does anyone have advice for nailing down a 100 yard wedge?

     

    Thanks!

     

     

     

  2. Will S

    Will S
    Louisville, KY

    Most clubfitters will tell you that it is beneficial the keep an even spread between you wedges. For titleist it is 4* for the short irons and 3* for the long irons. Currently you have 7* b/w you PW & GW and 6* b/w you GW & LW. If you would like to keep your current number of wedges I would reccomend either going 6* of seperation with a 47,53,and 59 or a 5* of seperation with 47,52, and 57. If you choose the route of 5* of seperation I would reccomend gettting a 56* and bending it to a 57* and doing a custom grind in order to give you more versatility. An option on the shaft would be the KBS Hi-Rev shaft in an X flex to match the rest of your set. An S200 is definately too soft of a shaft if you are using X flex in the rest of your clubs.
  3. DPavs

    DPavs
    Hastings, MI

    A Wedge Flex Dynamic Gold I believe is a S200/S300 shaft. Of course I cannot be sure but I think you were on the right track in adjusting your club loft a bit but may have chosen the wrong one to adjust. If it were me I would take a 54.14 and bend it down to a 52 which should yield approximately a 52.12 which you should be able to open a bit and play well from the sand or play it straight off the turf and get very close the 100 yards you are looking for. I'm not sure I would try to bend the 54.11 however and still use it out of the sand as the result would be a 52.09 approximately and that might not have quite enough bounce, well at least not for me. One alternative of course would be to carry 4 wedges.

    As a last thought I think the reason why you were getting a bit more distance than you anticipated out of the 52 when you bent it to a 54 is that a stock 52 is a quarter inch longer than a stock 54. I suppose if you really wanted to experiment you could cut it down by a quarter to half an inch or start by just choking up on it a bit to get to that magic 100 yd number.

  4. Jess P

    Jess P

    Thanks for the reply and insights.

    As a means of limiting my $$$ expenditure but also cleaning up this issue I think I'll try bending the 54 stronger first.  If I do that, I'll put another 56 I have in the bag that I really like out of the sand as my main bunker club. 

     

    Assuming I bend the 54.11 to a 52.??, will the effective change in bounce be a bad thing for regular shots if I'm a digger?  I really don't foresee using it opened up out of a bunker - so I'm not sure bounce variance would be an issue.

  5. Lou G

    Lou G
    San Diego, CA

    If anything, you would want to bend the 54-11 to 55-12. Bending a 54-11 to 52-09 renders it ineffective in a soft bunker. You can always use your 60 in a hard bunker. If you want to keep a 3 wedge set, learn to work the 47 wedge. You can shave 20 yards by choking all the way to the bottom of the grip. For the distance between 90 and 100 yards, you can do a square stance pitch with a PW or pitch a 9 iron.
  6. Jess P

    Jess P

    Yeah, I'll never use the bent 54 out of a soft greenside bunker anyway.

    I think what makes sense from reading your replies and talking to some local guys is this set up.

    PW(47*)

    54.11 bent to whatever I need it to be bent to in order to get that 100 yard wedge

    Put the 56* back in the bag

    60*

     

    I guess my only question before bending the wedge is what the effect of the bounce will be off of turf shots?

     

     

  7. Lou G

    Lou G
    San Diego, CA

    If you bend the 54-11 to 52-09, you would tend to dig on turf shots (you could always open the blade and do a cut shot). The other thing about bending the loft 2 deg on a Vokey is it is a cast club and you risk breaking the head by bending it that much (lie angle is OK but loft is another story). If you bend it to 53, you may get a 100 yard wedge and still have a reasonable amount of bounce for turf shots (53-10 also would give you a wedge for long bunker shots and should work in soft or wet sand). I just had a shootout between my DCI P (47) and Ping Eye 2 yellow dot W (48.5) this am (just had my Eye 2 irons reshafted to TT Lite XL and got them back yesterday) and, I hate to say, there isn't a thing on the market that can compare to the Eye 2 in the PW arena. Full shot distance is about equal but when it comes to the short game arena (and that includes a long shot out of soft or hard sand), the Eye 2 smokes it! I tried a Vokey 48 and didn't like it. The shootout continues between the DCI 981 and Eye 2 6-9 irons... I constructed a set of irons (Snake Eyes Q3I 5-SW and used 7-PW with a 6H)in 2009 and that line of iron heads did not have a gap wedge so I became rather adept at working a PW. I personally didn't find added value in a gap wedge. My wedge setup is Eye 2 PW (48.5), Vokey Spin Milled 54-11 (bent to 55-12) and 62-07. Simple and effective. I have had a 5 wedge setup (DCI P and W, 54-11, 60-07 and 64-07).
  8. Lou G

    Lou G
    San Diego, CA

    Spoke a little premature about the Eye 2 PW. Turns out I had the lie angle checked on the DCI 981 PW and it was 1/2 deg too upright so I had it flattened back to 65. This leveled the playing field later in the day. I picked up a Vokey Spin Milled 50-08 on the way to a music gig rather cheap (used) and got a chance to test it out at the park (sandbox, pitching, full shots) and must say I like it a lot better than either the DCI or Eye 2 PWs. So this makes the same short game regardless of whether I play golf with the Eye 2 irons or DCI 981 irons. 5* loft gap between Eye 2 9 iron or 7* loft gap between DCI 981 - there is this wonderful thing called choking down on the 9 iron to close the gap (only 15-20 yd anyway). So the wedge setup is simplified to Spin Milled 50-08, cc 54-11 and 62-07.

  9. Lou G

    Lou G
    San Diego, CA

    I now have a 50-08 cc bent to 51 and that would be an excellent gap wedge between the 47 and 54-11. It has 9 deg of bounce and works well on long bunker shots and many fairway conditions. Had two par saves with the old one last week.
  10. Lou G

    Lou G
    San Diego, CA

    When I wrote that last post about the 50-08 vs the Ping Eye 2 W (48.5), I was in the process of the shootout. What I had found at the time is the 50-08 was better around the greens for most pitches and chips and the Eye 2 W was better for the longer pitch shots and full golf shots. With that having been written, I set up the 50-08 as a gap wedge by bending the loft to 51 (making it 51-09). I found it very easy to hit a long bunker shot out of soft sand vs the 54-11 (the former I could open the face quite a bit but had to open it less with the latter). I played golf with both the Eye 2 W and the Vokey 50-08 and each did pretty well in its own right (they had par saves). I got the 50-08 cc last night, had it tweaked and took it out for some practice at the park and liked it. I've thought about pulling the PW since the gap between my 9 iron (45) and the 50-08 (51) is only 6 degrees but the thing about the PW is it has a composite grind sole (high bounce on leading edge and negative bounce on trailing edge) which is nice for thick grass. This would, in a way, be approaching "old school" golf (9 iron = 45, PW = 50).
  11. DPavs

    DPavs
    Hastings, MI

    Glad to hear you getting this dialed in Lou. I would think 6* of seperation is large enough to warrant keeping both clubs. From my experience unless you are very good at dialing down your shots you will find anything larger leaving you with a distance gap you cannot easily bridge.

  12. Lou G

    Lou G
    San Diego, CA

    I decided to keep the W in the bag mainly because of the way it performs on soft lies and sand. The advertised bounce is 9 deg but the leading edge is about 16 deg and the trailing edge is negative. I can actually hit it higher out of soft sand with the W vs the 50-08. The 9 iron and 50-08 are better for general purpose pitching and chipping. The gap between the 9 and 50-08 is not really an issue. I hit the 9 iron 120 yards and the 50-08 100. You can shave down a full swing 10 yards for every 1/2 inch you grip down. For half swings it is 5 yards per half inch and for 1/4 swing/chip it is 2.5 yards per half inch. I also constructed a set of irons (Snake Eyes Q3I 5-SW; I used only the 7-SW). It didn't come with a gap wedge so I got rather proficient at working the 9 iron and PW. As far as dialing down shots... one can do it with just about any club in the bag. Gotta practice it!
  13. steve m

    steve m
    Tacoma, WA

    Lou G said:

    If you bend the 54-11 to 52-09, you would tend to dig on turf shots (you could always open the blade and do a cut shot). The other thing about bending the loft 2 deg on a Vokey is it is a cast club and you risk breaking the head by bending it that much (lie angle is OK but loft is another story). If you bend it to 53, you may get a 100 yard wedge and still have a reasonable amount of bounce for turf shots (53-10 also would give you a wedge for long bunker shots and should work in soft or wet sand). I just had a shootout between my DCI P (47) and Ping Eye 2 yellow dot W (48.5) this am (just had my Eye 2 irons reshafted to TT Lite XL and got them back yesterday) and, I hate to say, there isn't a thing on the market that can compare to the Eye 2 in the PW arena. Full shot distance is about equal but when it comes to the short game arena (and that includes a long shot out of soft or hard sand), the Eye 2 smokes it! I tried a Vokey 48 and didn't like it. The shootout continues between the DCI 981 and Eye 2 6-9 irons... I constructed a set of irons (Snake Eyes Q3I 5-SW and used 7-PW with a 6H)in 2009 and that line of iron heads did not have a gap wedge so I became rather adept at working a PW. I personally didn't find added value in a gap wedge. My wedge setup is Eye 2 PW (48.5), Vokey Spin Milled 54-11 (bent to 55-12) and 62-07. Simple and effective. I have had a 5 wedge setup (DCI P and W, 54-11, 60-07 and 64-07).

    i work at a retail golf shop and i bend vokey wedges every day loft and lie......there is no fear in my mind in bending them at all so have no worries in bending

  14. Lou G

    Lou G
    San Diego, CA

    I really like the 50-08 bent to 51-09.
  15. DPavs

    DPavs
    Hastings, MI

    Honestly, off the turf... the effect of 2* of bounce this way or that way is almost neglible and certainly at 8* of bounce or more off turf you will be fine.
  16. ClubSurgeon

    ClubSurgeon
    Austin, TX

    I got a Vokey TVD R Gring 50 bent to 52. Goes 100-105 with the DG tour issue s400. Like it so much I have gone to only 2wedges. That one and a Vokey 58. My wife named the club, " The Magic Stik". It seems to have a mind of it's own. Finds the flag!!!

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