Wedge Fitting

Bounce Is Chosen From Your Divot

The single most useful piece of information in a wedge fitting is the shape of the hole you leave in the ground. Steep and deep asks for more bounce. Shallow and long asks for less. That is a measurement anyone can take, and it is the reason we insist on grass rather than a mat, where every divot looks identical because there is no divot.

We take a set of full and partial swings from turf, photograph the entry marks, and match bounce against them. Then we do the same in the bunker, because a golfer's sand technique frequently disagrees with their turf technique and the sand wedge has to serve both.

What Colorado Turf Does to the Answer

Front Range fairways run firm and thin through late summer, and the transitional weeks in spring and autumn can be softer than anything a visitor expects. A wedge chosen in July on a dry, tight lie will behave differently in May, and we say so on the sheet rather than pretending one grind covers the year.

For most golfers here the practical recommendation lands on a mid-bounce lob wedge with a relieved heel, which handles a tight lie without punishing a slightly steep strike in softer conditions. That is a tendency, not a rule, and it gets tested rather than assumed.

Sole grind is a turf conversation. It cannot be settled by looking at the club.

Gapping Below the Pitching Wedge

Modern iron sets have pushed pitching wedge lofts strong enough that the gap to a traditional sand wedge is frequently twelve degrees or more, which is a distance chasm rather than a gap. We build your wedge ladder from measured grass carry at full and three-quarter swings, log the air, and mark where the holes are.

Thin air compresses this ladder slightly. Wedge carries increase less proportionally with altitude than long clubs do, because spin and launch dominate their flight more than raw drag reduction. The net effect is that a gapping plan copied from a sea-level article usually leaves a bigger hole up here than it does at the coast.

Shafts and Weight

Wedge shafts are the most neglected component in most bags. A wedge shafted thirty grams lighter than the eight iron it follows will feel entirely different in a partial swing, and partial swings are most of what wedges do.

We check the weight progression across your scoring clubs and, more often than not, add mass at the wedge end rather than changing heads. It is a cheap adjustment with a disproportionate effect on distance control.

What the Block Covers

• Divot analysis from grass, full and partial swings
• Bunker testing on our own sand
• Bounce and grind comparison across three or four candidates
• Carry ladder at full, three-quarter and half swings
• Shaft weight progression from the iron set into the wedges
• Lie and length checked against your recorded address