Texas Wedge, What Is It And How Should It Be Played Golf (Video) - by Pete Styles
Texas Wedge, What Is It And How Should It Be Played Golf (Video) - by Pete Styles

Sometimes you hear the announcers on the golf course or the commentators, when you're watching the PGA Tour, talk about a Texas wedge and you think, well I've got me pitching wedge and sand wedge and I've even got my gap wedge and my lob wedge. But I don’t have one of these Texas wedges, where do you get one of those from? Well really you do have a Texas wedge because it’s your putter. So Ben Hogan first came up with this term of the Texas wedge. He’d leave a ball shot off the green and he said oh I need a Texas wedge from that to knock you onto the green.

So your Texas wedge is a putter, but a putter take it from off the green. I'll set up a little ball here and really it's only a couple of feet off the back if the green. So somebody will think that off the green they should really chip it. And only a chip in will putt this and all the pros they would always chip this ball. But in reality most good players will decide that this is a putter all day long, it's just going to be far more consistent and trying to chip the ball. Chipping the ball over this little fringe area here and landing on the green it's going to be a very, very difficult shot and something that I'm not going to get a great deal of consistency over. So it's going to be more cheesier just to putt this ball forwards. As long as there is grass in this area here isn’t too long, isn’t too sort of too dry, too fluffy, too wet, but if it's really clunky and wet, it might be quite difficult to roll the ball through the terrain. But if it's nice in a firm and dry like it is here in quite shot, I can putt through that without any problems at all. So I line myself up, I have a little practice putt, I might even walk to the edges with green and how hard would it take from here, then how hard would it take from here allowing for the fact that this is slightly longer grass will just slow the ball down a little bit. Then I take my Texas wedge and I try and push the ball down, then rolling it down towards the hall. What you find from this is even if it doesn’t go in, it's come pretty close. Now fine chip the ball to that distance. You playing partners will give me a great round of applause. But because you putted it to that distance, it doesn’t actually look that special, but instead it's to roll it down on top and you may too from thin off the green which is great. Now the decision is to be well how far back to I go. If I was here I'd still be putting, if I was here possibly, maybe a little bit further. Now I'm starting to go onto a little hump on the wrong side off the air and I've got to go open over the hill. But it's all flooded green, a lot of full of grass between me and the surface of the green. But if I can putt this, see it comes up a little bit short I guess like up in that long grass. Now you look at a shot like that you think well maybe with that one would have been better chip in that one. Because I would have chip that one onto the surface it would have rolled down better and well if we give it a little bit more oomph run it down there a little bit back to get bubbling of it, but yeah probably too many variations from there, not great results. So we probably say here with this green and with this example maybe 10 or 12 foot off the putting surface works and any further way is tougher. If you play golf course, let's imagine the US opens style of golf course where there is big long thick grass around the fringe of the green maybe the Texas wedge isn’t the shot for you. But if you ever a play Links golf in Scotland or in Ireland where you have the big dry fringes, lots of expansive areas with short grass around the side of the green, you could be using the Texas wedge from maybe where that tree is: 30, 40, 50 yards off the green and a big long Texas wedge all the way up onto the surface. So you’ve always got a Texas wedge in your bag, you just got to choose when is the right time to play it. 2014-10-15

Sometimes you hear the announcers on the golf course or the commentators, when you're watching the PGA Tour, talk about a Texas wedge and you think, well I've got me pitching wedge and sand wedge and I've even got my gap wedge and my lob wedge. But I don’t have one of these Texas wedges, where do you get one of those from? Well really you do have a Texas wedge because it’s your putter. So Ben Hogan first came up with this term of the Texas wedge. He’d leave a ball shot off the green and he said oh I need a Texas wedge from that to knock you onto the green.

So your Texas wedge is a putter, but a putter take it from off the green. I'll set up a little ball here and really it's only a couple of feet off the back if the green. So somebody will think that off the green they should really chip it. And only a chip in will putt this and all the pros they would always chip this ball. But in reality most good players will decide that this is a putter all day long, it's just going to be far more consistent and trying to chip the ball. Chipping the ball over this little fringe area here and landing on the green it's going to be a very, very difficult shot and something that I'm not going to get a great deal of consistency over.

So it's going to be more cheesier just to putt this ball forwards. As long as there is grass in this area here isn’t too long, isn’t too sort of too dry, too fluffy, too wet, but if it's really clunky and wet, it might be quite difficult to roll the ball through the terrain. But if it's nice in a firm and dry like it is here in quite shot, I can putt through that without any problems at all. So I line myself up, I have a little practice putt, I might even walk to the edges with green and how hard would it take from here, then how hard would it take from here allowing for the fact that this is slightly longer grass will just slow the ball down a little bit. Then I take my Texas wedge and I try and push the ball down, then rolling it down towards the hall.

What you find from this is even if it doesn’t go in, it's come pretty close. Now fine chip the ball to that distance. You playing partners will give me a great round of applause. But because you putted it to that distance, it doesn’t actually look that special, but instead it's to roll it down on top and you may too from thin off the green which is great. Now the decision is to be well how far back to I go. If I was here I'd still be putting, if I was here possibly, maybe a little bit further. Now I'm starting to go onto a little hump on the wrong side off the air and I've got to go open over the hill.

But it's all flooded green, a lot of full of grass between me and the surface of the green. But if I can putt this, see it comes up a little bit short I guess like up in that long grass. Now you look at a shot like that you think well maybe with that one would have been better chip in that one. Because I would have chip that one onto the surface it would have rolled down better and well if we give it a little bit more oomph run it down there a little bit back to get bubbling of it, but yeah probably too many variations from there, not great results. So we probably say here with this green and with this example maybe 10 or 12 foot off the putting surface works and any further way is tougher. If you play golf course, let's imagine the US opens style of golf course where there is big long thick grass around the fringe of the green maybe the Texas wedge isn’t the shot for you.

But if you ever a play Links golf in Scotland or in Ireland where you have the big dry fringes, lots of expansive areas with short grass around the side of the green, you could be using the Texas wedge from maybe where that tree is: 30, 40, 50 yards off the green and a big long Texas wedge all the way up onto the surface. So you’ve always got a Texas wedge in your bag, you just got to choose when is the right time to play it.