How Many Golf Wedges Should I Carry In My Bag (Video) - by Pete Styles
How Many Golf Wedges Should I Carry In My Bag (Video) - by Pete Styles

I think a lot of people never actually ask this question because the manufacturers don’t really tell them to ask this question. When you buy your set of golf clubs you get three irons, three to sand wedge and that’s just what you get. You get a pitching wedge and get a sand wedge. Now where you should probably look at is look at a good player’s bag, look in the tour professional’s bag. Not a single one of the guys on tour carries sand wedge and pitching wedge and nothing else. They will all have extra or specialist wedges in their sets. Now those are the guys on the top of the game doing that it turns the reason everybody else should probably be copying them and adding in specialist wedges to their game. Now I'm a big advocate of carrying four wedges. If you've got space in your bag and you don’t fill that space, you're only allowed to carry 14 clubs. So if you’ve got space within those 14 clubs to get four wedges in there I think you should do that. Most people have a pitching wedges part of their set.

And let's say the pitching wedge is going to be about 46 degrees of loft. So your sand wedge is probably somewhere like 54, 55 degrees of loft. So you've got quite a big space there, you have about 8, 9 degrees of loft. Now what I would encourage you to do is split the middle of that gap and put in a gap wedge. So around about 50 degrees of loft to 46 pitching wedge, 50 will be your gap wedge, 54 or 55 will be your sand wedge and then one more at the top end again about four, five degrees away; so somewhere about 58 maybe even 60 degrees of loft, and that would be your lob wedge Now by having four degrees of space between each club you’ve cut down in half the distance that the shots will go between the pitching wedge and the sand wedge. A lot of golfer’s report well a full pitching wedge goes over the green and a full sand wedge won't reach. That’s why you need that gap wedge in that bag. That’s why you need that lob wedge in that bag, because that gives you all the different variety of distances. And somebody will say well what am I going to take out my bag then Pete, because if I can't have a 14, 15, 16 clubs but I've got to have these four wedges that you've suggested and I really like my three iron and I really like my two iron and I really like my five wood. But the reality is how many of those shots do you get on a golf course. And if you do get one of those golf shots on the course, that need a three iron, two irons and a five wood from 200 jobs out. How imperative is it that you got that shot right to within 10 yards. The reality is from 200 yards that we’re all happy just to be out there just to be on the green. Whether it's the front, the middle or the back of the green is almost irrelevant. But from 100 yards or 80 yards it's really important we get the right yardage to within 10 yards. So if it's a case of taking out a long club and losing it to replace it with an extra wedge, that’s the decision I think you should make. Try to definitely, definitely carry three wedges and ideally carry four wedges in your bag. 2014-11-07

I think a lot of people never actually ask this question because the manufacturers don’t really tell them to ask this question. When you buy your set of golf clubs you get three irons, three to sand wedge and that’s just what you get. You get a pitching wedge and get a sand wedge. Now where you should probably look at is look at a good player’s bag, look in the tour professional’s bag. Not a single one of the guys on tour carries sand wedge and pitching wedge and nothing else. They will all have extra or specialist wedges in their sets. Now those are the guys on the top of the game doing that it turns the reason everybody else should probably be copying them and adding in specialist wedges to their game. Now I'm a big advocate of carrying four wedges. If you've got space in your bag and you don’t fill that space, you're only allowed to carry 14 clubs. So if you’ve got space within those 14 clubs to get four wedges in there I think you should do that. Most people have a pitching wedges part of their set.

And let's say the pitching wedge is going to be about 46 degrees of loft. So your sand wedge is probably somewhere like 54, 55 degrees of loft. So you've got quite a big space there, you have about 8, 9 degrees of loft. Now what I would encourage you to do is split the middle of that gap and put in a gap wedge. So around about 50 degrees of loft to 46 pitching wedge, 50 will be your gap wedge, 54 or 55 will be your sand wedge and then one more at the top end again about four, five degrees away; so somewhere about 58 maybe even 60 degrees of loft, and that would be your lob wedge

Now by having four degrees of space between each club you’ve cut down in half the distance that the shots will go between the pitching wedge and the sand wedge. A lot of golfer’s report well a full pitching wedge goes over the green and a full sand wedge won't reach. That’s why you need that gap wedge in that bag. That’s why you need that lob wedge in that bag, because that gives you all the different variety of distances.

And somebody will say well what am I going to take out my bag then Pete, because if I can't have a 14, 15, 16 clubs but I've got to have these four wedges that you've suggested and I really like my three iron and I really like my two iron and I really like my five wood. But the reality is how many of those shots do you get on a golf course. And if you do get one of those golf shots on the course, that need a three iron, two irons and a five wood from 200 jobs out.

How imperative is it that you got that shot right to within 10 yards. The reality is from 200 yards that we’re all happy just to be out there just to be on the green. Whether it's the front, the middle or the back of the green is almost irrelevant. But from 100 yards or 80 yards it's really important we get the right yardage to within 10 yards. So if it's a case of taking out a long club and losing it to replace it with an extra wedge, that’s the decision I think you should make. Try to definitely, definitely carry three wedges and ideally carry four wedges in your bag.