Most of us inherited our wedges from a set rather than choosing them. Here’s how to work out if what’s in your bag actually earns its place, whatever your handicap.
Think about how your wedges actually arrived. For most of us, the pitching wedge came as part of the irons. Somewhere along the way a sand wedge got added, maybe because a friend recommended it, maybe because it was in the set. If a lob wedge turned up too, there’s a good chance it was because it looked useful on the shelf, not because anyone worked out whether it filled a gap in the bag.
None of that is a criticism. It’s just how most golfers end up equipped. The trouble is that “what came with the set” and “what your game actually needs” are two different questions, and most of us have only ever answered the first one.
Meet the wedge family
There are four names that come up again and again when golfers talk wedges. Here’s what each one is generally for.
- Pitching wedge (PW) is the wedge that comes with your irons. It’s the lowest lofted of the group, built for fuller shots into the green.
- Approach wedge (A), sometimes called a gap wedge, sits between the pitching wedge and the sand wedge. Its whole job is to close the loft gap those two leave behind.
- Sand wedge (SW) is built with more bounce to help the club glide through sand and soft turf rather than digging in. It’s the specialist for bunkers, but plenty of golfers lean on it for greenside shots too.
- Lob wedge (LW) carries the most loft of the four, designed for short, high, soft landing shots when there’s very little green to work with.
Do they all deserve a spot in your bag? Not automatically.
A lob wedge earns its place if you regularly face tight pins or need to clear a bunker with almost no green to work with. If those shots rarely come up in your golf, it can end up as the club you carry but never trust when it matters.
An approach wedge only earns its place if there’s a genuine gap to fill. If your pitching wedge and sand wedge are already close in loft, an approach wedge on top can just be a fourth club doing a similar job to the other three, rather than covering new ground.
A sand wedge does more than bunker duty for most players. It’s often the club standing between a good chip and a chunked one, which is a strong case for keeping it. Still worth checking it isn’t sitting too close in loft to whatever comes before it.
None of these four clubs is wrong to carry. But carrying all four just because they exist isn’t the same as building a bag that works for you.
Why loft gaps matter more than the label on the club
A wedge’s name tells you what it’s roughly for. Its loft is what decides whether it’s actually doing you any good.
Two wedges close in loft will fly similar distances, so one of them isn’t adding much. Two wedges too far apart in loft leave a hole in your distances, exactly where you’d want a controlled shot, and instead you’re stuck between a full swing with one club and a guessed half swing with the next.
The aim is even spacing between whichever wedges you carry, so there’s a sensible club for every distance inside 100 yards, rather than big jumps and overlaps.
Why this matters at every handicap
Loft gapping isn’t just a low handicap concern.
Play off a 54 and a badly gapped wedge set means more mishit half shots in the part of the game that’s already hardest to master, and more strokes lost in exactly the area where confidence matters most.
Play off a single figure handicap and the story is different but the stakes are just as real. At that level, the difference between an up and down and a bogey often comes down to trusting the exact yardage in your hand. Tighter margins mean a poorly spaced wedge set costs you more often, not less.
Every golfer carries wedges. Every golfer benefits from knowing whether hers are set up properly.
A simple way to check your own bag
No launch monitor required. Next time your clubs are out, ask:
- What wedges do I actually have in my bag right now?
- Did I choose each one, or did it come with something else?
- Is there a shot distance I always seem to get stuck between two clubs on?
A yes to that last question is usually the clearest sign of a gap worth sorting out.
Read More: Why a Custom Club Fitting Might Be the Best £100 You Spend This Autumn
