The Basics Of Golf Wedge Spin (Video) - by Pete Styles
The Basics Of Golf Wedge Spin (Video) - by Pete Styles

I guess if we’re going to start establishing how we can create more spin on the golf ball the first thing we’ve got to look at is what actually creates that spin and how can we have an effect on it. There are lots of different things that go together that create spin on a golf ball. One of the first things is actually the club itself. One thing you could look at here is the amount of loft that is on the golf club. Generally speaking the more angle on the golf club the more backspin we will create, so a driver will create around about two to three, three and a half thousand revolutions of backspin per minute, but the pitching wedge would create around about seven to ten thousand revolutions of backspin per minute.

So hence while when your driver lands on the fairway, if ever it does land on the green, it’s not stopping, it’s going to keep bouncing down the fairway rolling over the green, which is often what we want the driver to do, we want it to go as far as we can. We hit with a pitching wedge, seven to ten thousand revolutions per minute of backspin, that ball is going to land on the green and hopefully we can start to get it to back up, so the loft on the club is a primary factor. Other considerations might be, particularly when we look at the clubs, the condition and the age, basically the sharpens of the grooves. A brand new golf club will have relatively sharp grooves. The more you practice with that golf club, you kind of ware the edges off the groves a little bit, particularly if you hit lots of bunker shots and sand shots, you can understand how the sand would sort of grind off the edges of the grooves to a point where after the club is five-ten years old there won’t be a great deal of spin opportunities left on the grooves. Other consideration is the quality of the golf ball. Simply, the harder the golf ball the less the ball will spin. You can understand that, a hard ball against a hard face, there is not much interaction, the ball will jump and go a long way, but it won’t spin, a softer ball effectively is going to stick to the face that little bit longer, it’s just going to get embedded in the face and you’ll have more chance to spin that ball a little bit more when it lands on the green. One last consideration, I think something a lot of club golfers underestimate is the quality of the lie makes quite a big difference, particularly if you’re hitting a ball on the wet or very grassy fairway. If there is ever a chance to get grass or moisture stuck between the clubface and the ball that’s going to drastically reduce the amount of backspin you create. So actually playing a ball out of the semi-rough you might think, well, the ball is sitting up, I can get underneath it. Yes, the ball will go really high, you’ll get underneath it and land on the green, but it probably won’t stop because there will be a film of glass or a film of moisture stuck between clubface and ball that reduces the friction, reduces the contact and the ball would go too far. So perfect conditions, if we were to get everything lined up, would be a really premium soft golf ball, a perfectly flat and quite tightly mowed lie, a relatively new lob wedge or sand wedge with nice sharp grooves. If you’ve all those things in situ we’ve got our equipment and our position in the best place to start back spinning or wedge shots. 2016-04-22

I guess if we’re going to start establishing how we can create more spin on the golf ball the first thing we’ve got to look at is what actually creates that spin and how can we have an effect on it. There are lots of different things that go together that create spin on a golf ball. One of the first things is actually the club itself. One thing you could look at here is the amount of loft that is on the golf club. Generally speaking the more angle on the golf club the more backspin we will create, so a driver will create around about two to three, three and a half thousand revolutions of backspin per minute, but the pitching wedge would create around about seven to ten thousand revolutions of backspin per minute.

So hence while when your driver lands on the fairway, if ever it does land on the green, it’s not stopping, it’s going to keep bouncing down the fairway rolling over the green, which is often what we want the driver to do, we want it to go as far as we can. We hit with a pitching wedge, seven to ten thousand revolutions per minute of backspin, that ball is going to land on the green and hopefully we can start to get it to back up, so the loft on the club is a primary factor.

Other considerations might be, particularly when we look at the clubs, the condition and the age, basically the sharpens of the grooves. A brand new golf club will have relatively sharp grooves. The more you practice with that golf club, you kind of ware the edges off the groves a little bit, particularly if you hit lots of bunker shots and sand shots, you can understand how the sand would sort of grind off the edges of the grooves to a point where after the club is five-ten years old there won’t be a great deal of spin opportunities left on the grooves.

Other consideration is the quality of the golf ball. Simply, the harder the golf ball the less the ball will spin. You can understand that, a hard ball against a hard face, there is not much interaction, the ball will jump and go a long way, but it won’t spin, a softer ball effectively is going to stick to the face that little bit longer, it’s just going to get embedded in the face and you’ll have more chance to spin that ball a little bit more when it lands on the green.

One last consideration, I think something a lot of club golfers underestimate is the quality of the lie makes quite a big difference, particularly if you’re hitting a ball on the wet or very grassy fairway. If there is ever a chance to get grass or moisture stuck between the clubface and the ball that’s going to drastically reduce the amount of backspin you create. So actually playing a ball out of the semi-rough you might think, well, the ball is sitting up, I can get underneath it. Yes, the ball will go really high, you’ll get underneath it and land on the green, but it probably won’t stop because there will be a film of glass or a film of moisture stuck between clubface and ball that reduces the friction, reduces the contact and the ball would go too far.

So perfect conditions, if we were to get everything lined up, would be a really premium soft golf ball, a perfectly flat and quite tightly mowed lie, a relatively new lob wedge or sand wedge with nice sharp grooves. If you’ve all those things in situ we’ve got our equipment and our position in the best place to start back spinning or wedge shots.