A wealth of new Web-based tools can help simplify the task of choosing the best wedge.
When you're out for a nice meal, choosing an appetizer, main course and dessert holds no particular fear. Any idiot can navigate a menu. The wine list -- that's another story.
Wedges are the wine of golf. They're complex creatures. Vino's body, balance and terroir (never mind legs, chewiness and other mumbo jumbo) have nothing on wedges' bounce, grind and leading edge. The wine must pair with the meal; the wedges need to pair with each other and with the rest of the set. What's more, a Bordeaux isn't also occasionally asked to pull double duty as a Beaujolais or a Riesling, but a gap wedge might be opened or shut to function as a sand wedge or pitching wedge if the situation requires. Mon dieu!
With wines, you can call in help from a sommelier if it's a fancy joint or just be like a friend of ours and automatically order the second-cheapest bottle. With wedges, you could (and, at some point, should) go to a custom fitter or your local pro -- or, for the very online, as an increasing number of us are nowadays, give clubmakers' handy selector tools a spin.
A box-ticking trip through many of the major makers' offerings reveals that the material is consistent, but the approaches vary. Everyone asks essentially the same questions to get the same vital info but in a distinct and on-brand way. Just as each club designer makes wedges that look a bit different, so too do web designers and questionnaires. Take the time to take these tests -- a few minutes each, no SAT flashbacks -- and you'll learn not only which wedges may well be right for you at each company but also maybe which brand you vibe with.
Ping, for example, was founded by an engineer, Karsten Solheim, and will forever be an engineering-centric company. Ping people are more likely to know their dot color than their blood type. (If you don't get this, you are not yet a Ping person; it refers to the company's color-coded club fitting system.) So, it's little surprise that its WEBFIT selector requires you to first create an account and enter general body measurements, scoring info, ballflight trajectory and shot shape, etc. -- engineers love data like, well, a vampire loves blood. (As noted in GOLF's April issue, the company recently introduced a wedge app that will spit out two suggested grind options, which you can take to a Ping-authorized gear maestro for a drilled-down fitting.)
Then come what one eventually grasps are the meat-and-potatoes issues for almost every wedge selector. These are: typical turf conditions you encounter; typical sand conditions you encounter; your full-swing angle of attack, as measured by your divot depth; how you like to use your wedges and how you sole them; and how much loft you're comfortable using before you start getting twitchy.
What's perhaps most interesting and exciting about WEBFIT is that it goes beyond the objective to the subjective, beyond hard data to squishier stuff like feelings. "Do you find bunker shots scary or intimidating?" (Responses are limited to Yes or No; "You insult me, sir!" is not an option.) "Do you struggle with pitch shots from tight lies?" (Ditto; sadly absent is "Just reading that question made me flinch.") After answering all 15 queries, out comes the recommended model, loft, length, color code, shaft flex, grip and grip size. It's as thorough as one would expect from Ping. Even more satisfying, one feels truly heard.
Titleist offers selectors for everything under the sun -- ball, driver, irons, wedges -- and immediately reminds all e-visitors that, beyond these tools, options for getting into the perfect gear include virtual consultations; its two test centers (Titleist Performance Institute in California and its Manchester facility in Massachusetts); and, especially, Titleist Fitting Partners (many of whom are now armed with a whiz-bang Vokey Wedge Fitting App that's especially useful in getting the right grinds -- a challenge with indoor testing as with e- and virtual fittings). This bounty underscores something already known to any "core" golfer, namely, that Titleist is as authentic and full line a brand as any in the business.
Its eight-question quiz's version of the full-swing divot query -- "Sweeper/Neutral/Digger" (with brief descriptions, just in case) instead of "small, medium, large," as one competitor has it -- emphasizes that speaking fluent golf comes second nature to Titleist types. And when you're done, like a Disney ride that spits you out into the gift shop, your recommended Vokey wedges lead right to the Wedge Customizer, where the real fun starts. Select your finish! Character stamping! Paint fill! Hand ground options! Toe engraving! Flight lines! Ferrule! And more! Oh, my!
For many golfers, the Pavlovian response to "wedges" is "Cleveland." Until early this year, however, the brand's wedge selector tool was surprisingly rudimentary -- one or two questions, max, failing to leverage its broad lineup of models for all ability levels. No longer: The upgraded 2024 tool has two detailed, model-specific quizzes -- one for the traditional RTX Series, another for the game-improvement CBX Series (along with more detailed info on its ultra-game-improvement Smart Sole Wedge system) -- whose questions drill down to produce exact lofts, models, sole grinds and face types. Consumers can even build combo sets of traditional grooves and full-face grooves. Speaking of set-building, the new tool employs similar technology that sister-brand Srixon uses in its iron-combo sets and Halo XL fairway wood/hybrid sets. Blood is thicker than wedges.
Continue through these tests and you start to think as much like a web designer as a golfer. Oh, they used a sliding scale for handicap instead of a counting applet or boxes with different ranges. Ah, these folks ask me to select all that apply on one web page instead of breaking it into separate questions. Do you like the look of the wedges selected more when you like the selector tool itself? Well, plenty of people go into a wine shop and pick whatever has the coolest label.
Callaway gets inclusivity snaps for first asking the player's gender and handedness. Its "types of shots you hit with each of the four possible wedges" is all subsumed into one question (Step 4 of 7; love the concision), and asking golfers, in Step 6, to rank their top three wedge characteristics (from nine options) is laudably direct.
You're the one who's going to be using the things, after all, so what's most important to you is what's most important, right? You're driving the bus.
Another industry behemoth, TaylorMade, likewise emphasizes that, at bottom, you are the selector tool. (Left unsaid but apparent: Its handsome creation is much better designed.) It asks -- "Including the pitching wedge, how many wedges do you want in your bag? 3? 4?" -- rather than tells you what you need. Also unique is its inquiry into whether you want "high launch, good spin" or "low launch, more spin."
What we all want, of course, is to be a better damn wedge player. This involves much more than the arrows in one's quiver, but answering selector tool questions thoughtfully and honestly is as good a place to start as any. The other option: Crack open a bottle of pinot noir and call it a day.