One of the most common questions I’m asked by golfers is about my thoughts about the highest loft wedge you should carry, so I thought that would make a good topic for today’s post.  

    Let me start with a bit of history of putting wedges in our bags, as that might help make sense of the subject for each of you.

    After the invention of the sand wedge in the 1930s – a breakthrough design generally credited to Gene Sarazen – most golfers began to carry one.  From that time through the 1940s, most golfers relegated that club to only those shots hit from the sand.  Most “sand wedges” from that time until the mid-1980s were about 55-56 degrees in loft, but loft was not a specification that many paid much attention to.  Sets of irons had a “pitching wedge” of about 50-52 degrees, and that was the more generally used club for greenside shots and short pitches.  In his 1949 book, “Power Golf”, Ben Hogan wrote that the sand wedge could be a great tool for certain greenside shots.

    Through the 1940s, 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s, most of golf’s biggest stars only carried one “wedge” after their set-match pitching wedge.  Many of them used that club to great success, and we witnessed near genius in the likes of Tom Watson, Phil Rogers, Seve Ballesteros and others. 

    Tom Kite began using the first 60-degree wedge to great success and his 1992 US Open victory was the icing on that cake.  They say he was deadly from his “magic number” -- 63 yards, as I remember.  Those first 60-degree wedges had very large heavy soles, with very pronounced camber from front to back.  And they were very difficult to master for most recreational golfers.

    Since that time, the higher lofted wedges have taken on more of the look of the traditional sand wedge, and the loft selection was expanded with 58 and 60 degrees most common, but there are offerings as high as 70 degrees!  I believe Phil Mickelson gave the lofts over 60 degrees more visibility and curiosity than anyone.

    In the modern era, Jordan Speith has amazed us with his creativity and execution of seemingly impossible greenside recoveries, and we see short game genius demonstrated every week on the PGA and LPGA tours.  

    So, with all these choices, what do each of you do with regard to deciding how high to go with the loft of your wedges?  The reality is that the answer to that question is different for everyone but let me try to help you make sense of the process.

    My observation is that the lofts over about 57-58* are much more challenging to master for most recreational golfers.  Even on the PGA Tour, the 58* has become the more common lob wedge.  That’s because as loft increases above that level, controlling ball flight and distance becomes more and more difficult, even for the most skilled players.  Most golfers have a hard time making as full a swing as required to move the ball a given distance with these high loft wedges.  That said, I have seen recreational golfers that do a great job and use their high-loft wedges to great utility.  But that number is very small.  

    Mastering the higher lofted wedges of 60-64 degrees requires a great deal of practice, hitting all kinds of shots from whatever distance you consider “full” to delicate greenside chips and pitches.  If you can take the time to do that, then you might turn that high-loft wedge into a powerful scoring tool.

     But if you don’t . . .  well, my bet is that it will cost you more shots than it saves.