Before You Buy Wedges Watch This … with Michael Breed

Added: 2026-05-04

[00:00:00]You know, the start of the season is always really fun for me and and there are a lot of questions that they continue to be brought up every single year at the beginning of the golf season and it happened again. My good friend Rand asked asked me this question, how do I know what's the right what are the right wedges for me? It happens all the time. I know you're one of those people that's concerned about, hey, when do I replace my wedges all that other stuff?

[00:00:25]We'll get to that in a different video.

[00:00:27]This video is just going to be how do I create the wedge makeup? Don't forget to like and subscribe to the channel and share with your friends what we're doing over here. So, in order for you to be able to have the right clubs in your bag and I'm talking about wedges now, what you have to examine is how far do you hit your 9-iron? Because what we want to do first and foremost is figure out what the gaps of our wedges are. Now, this is before we get into bounce, we're just talking about what is the the gap in my or what are the gaps that I have in my clubs? So, what I like to do with my students is just start with a 9-iron.

[00:01:03]And you get set with a 9-iron, we're just going to hit some shots and we're going to start to find out how far we actually hit this this golf club because this is going to be the predictor of what the next club down is going to be.

[00:01:18]So, there's a pretty good solid 9-iron.

[00:01:19]That one went about 140.

[00:01:22]All right?

[00:01:24]Hit another one here.

[00:01:26]Spin weight was uh was pretty good, too.

[00:01:31]Let's see what we got here.

[00:01:37]This is another good strike. This one went 145.

[00:01:42]So, I've got a 140 and a 145.

[00:01:46]We'll do the third one here. This will be the last one.

[00:01:50]See what we get with this last one here.

[00:01:54]Now, I hit that one fat.

[00:01:56]So, that one there I'm I'm going to I'm going to take that out.

[00:02:00]I'm going to hit one more cuz I want to have three that are counters. And when you're doing this, I wouldn't just do like three or four.

[00:02:06]I'd I'd probably do this with like 10.

[00:02:10]When you're going through this, there's a thoroughness that you have to have and so you have to know like what is the what's the on the long end, how far do you hit it when you hit it max and then what's sort of the the comfortable yardage that you're playing? So, right now, I'm going to erase that last one in my mind. I'm dealing with a 140 and a 145.

[00:02:32]This was very solid.

[00:02:35]And now let's come on up to the front.

[00:02:38]That one stopped really quickly. So, this is about what I'm looking at with my 9-iron.

[00:02:44]I've got a carry distance of about 145 and it actually stopped at 145. The ball speed's at about 106. So, that's what's going to be in my head. Now, what I want to find out is and I've got I've got nine different wedges here.

[00:03:04]My nine different wedges are starting at 44° of loft and then they increase by 2° on every single wedge all the way up to 60. So, 44, 46, 48, 50 and so on. You get the point. And now what I'm going to try to figure out is what's my gap?

[00:03:19]Well, first, I want to then go backwards. Hey, what's my 8-iron distance? What's my 9-iron distance?

[00:03:26]What are the gaps between my clubs? I play 10° gaps. And so what I'm looking for here is a 10° gap between my 9-iron and my pitching wedge. This is the 44.

[00:03:40]And I can tell you I don't play a 44, but I want to hit this so that you have an idea of what's going on. And again, when I'm doing this, I would typically hit probably eight to 10 shots.

[00:03:57]So, there's the 44.

[00:04:01]And that one went 140 yd.

[00:04:05]Now, I'm not going to hit all these shots, but what I'm going to say is, okay, at 44, that's only a 5-yd gap. That's way too tight. So, I'm not going to use 44.

[00:04:18]We'll put that on the side.

[00:04:21]I'm going to go to a 46 and see what I get with the 46. Is this going to change another 5 yd? Is the 46 the number that I want? Will that get me to 135?

[00:04:36]So, here we go.

[00:04:44]And there's the shot on this one. This is a pretty solid shot.

[00:04:48]Let's see what we get there.

[00:04:50]That's 137, 138.

[00:04:56]Try that one more time.

[00:04:58]That's a little farther than I want. I would want this to be to max out at 135. I don't want my max to be faster than this or longer than this. And the other thing that happened, go on up and show those numbers there, Gibbsy, if you would. And what you can see with that is the ball speed on that is about 108. I'm sorry. 102. 107 101.7.

[00:05:21]So, 102. What I'm looking for is about a 5 mph gap here. That's a little stronger. The other one was 106, this is 102, so it's four.

[00:05:31]So, this may be a little strong.

[00:05:34]Let's see what we get on this next one.

[00:05:39]all provided that they are solid strikes.

[00:05:44]This is a very solid strike.

[00:05:46]This might be actually farther than that uh last one that I just hit there.

[00:05:51]And that is that's 102.2 and it went 139. So, the 46 is too strong still. So, I've eliminated the 44 and I've eliminated the 46. Now, what I should get is this 48. This should be this should be a good number for me here. I should start to see this ball speed right around like maxing out at 101, maybe settling at at 100 and going right in the neighborhood of 135.

[00:06:27]So, let's see what we get here.

[00:06:29]Pretty good strike.

[00:06:32]And 99 and 133. So, so this is actually this is pretty good.

[00:06:39]And by the way, not for nothing, I actually know that I'm a 48° guy. That's I know my wedge is 48. I've been 48 for a while, but just looking at the numbers and showing you how this works. So, we'll do it again.

[00:06:58]This one I got a little bit thin. So, this is not going to have the same ball speed that I had on the last one, nor is it going to have the same distance. Ball speed dropped down to 95. That was a miss strike. And again, 125 is the number.

[00:07:14]So, let's give this one more shot.

[00:07:21]And this one's really quite good.

[00:07:23]I like this one a lot.

[00:07:26]And that one there is going to spin back a little bit and the ball speed that is about 99 and so that's 130, but I like that strike. It was a touch thin, but still quite good. So, my max number there was 135. This is where I'm going to be. 48's my number. It fits my gap. Now, we start to now make sense of what we're going to do.

[00:07:49]So, from here in the 48 and knowing that 44 and 46 didn't quite hit the number that I want, I'm probably going to a 52. I would bypass the 50 cuz that would be the 2° gap. It's only going to take 5 yd off. So, immediately I'm going to jump to I'm going to put my that's going to be my gamer right over there.

[00:08:13]So, now I'm going to go to 52, which is this club that I have right here.

[00:08:19]Now, this club off that 48, if I lose the the 5 mph of ball speed, this should get to what? That number's going to be about um 90? Is that my math on this? It was 106, 101, 96. Yeah, this is going to be this should be this should be right around 95.

[00:08:50]Something like that. Let's see what we get.

[00:08:56]So, this was a little on the toe and that's going to steal some distance from me, but that's 120. So, ball speed on that one was 93. Actually, that makes sense. So, a little bit on the toe, I lost a couple miles an hour of speed on that. So, if I hit that in the center of the face, this should jump up to 95 and that 95 should get me at about 125.

[00:09:21]So, let's try it again.

[00:09:25]See if we can make a bit more solid strike.

[00:09:31]That was a pretty good strike.

[00:09:33]I'm going to say that that's about the same, maybe a shade less. Yeah, 91. And one of the things that you want to pay attention to here is this.

[00:09:44]The numbers on your golf club are sort of starting points and then you kind of work around them. Now, as I as I told you at the start of this, I've got 2° gap differential.

[00:09:57]When you go with the the Vokey wedges, if you need if you find that you need a 53° wedge, then they can bend it to 53 for you. Or if you want to take a 54 and get it to 53, well, they can strengthen that too to get to that number too. So, you're not just locked into hey, here's the only loft that you've got on the golf club, okay? You can you can you can uh get them customized that way for you.

[00:10:21]Here we go. 52 again.

[00:10:23]See if I can get to 95.

[00:10:28]That was a much more solid strike.

[00:10:31]This one here should sniff my ball speed number There you go.

[00:10:37]So, here you go.

[00:10:39]So, ball speed number there is 94 mph.

[00:10:41]Lost a little bit on that. And that went 120. So, now all of a sudden, I've got a little gap here between my 48 and my 52.

[00:10:49]Even though there's just 4° in that, what I have is I've got about a 15-yd gap. So, I might take this 52 and strengthen it to 51, see if I can't bump that speed up a little bit more and fill that gap. But, what it also does is it puts me in a situation where um I I got to check and see what goes on with my 56. And what we're trying to do is really establish the gaps cuz what could be ideal for me is going from a a 52, strengthening it to 51, and then getting a 56 and strengthening that to 55, okay? All right, so let's see what our numbers are here.

[00:11:27]Now, we got to go that's a 54.

[00:11:31]This is going to be 56. And again, the first place that you're starting, I'm not working on bounce.

[00:11:38]I'm not I'm working on what is my what's my loft differential, and then I might mess around with bounces. And when I start to go, okay, I need a 52. Now, is there a difference between my 52s? Can I get one 52 that's got a little bit more bounce and maybe it gives a little faster ball speed or not.

[00:11:58]The the real question of of of bounce to me, like the imperative part of bounce, is going to be how does it work out of the bunker? And am I a 56 player out of the bunker or am I a 58 or 60 player out of the bunker? Those are all things that you're going to answer a little bit later. But, what you're really starting with is just simply this. What's the gap in the loft? So, here's my 56. Now, my uh 52 was going about 120.

[00:12:25]So, if I and I'd never really ever swing full crease with a a 56, but my 56, if I do this right, I should probably get in the neighborhood of 105 to 110 yd. I don't think I'm going to get and I don't play a 56.

[00:12:42]Um I play 50 I play a 53 and a 58.

[00:12:46]So, here we go. 56.

[00:12:51]So, that was really really good. I could actually feel the spin that was created in that in that strike. Now, let's see what the ball speed is. So, watch what happens with the ball speed. So, my ball speed now is at 87. That's a little bit um I I I'd like a little bit more speed out of that, but I got that thing to go 107.

[00:13:12]So, that's pretty that's pretty close to my number. I got a I got a one I got a 120 and that's about a one 107 110.

[00:13:20]That's close enough for me. So, I'm kind of in the all right, this 56 is going to kind of work. So, I don't have to worry about that. So, now let's see what happens with the 60.

[00:13:28]Now, what I can tell you here with the 60 is this cuz I know this.

[00:13:34]I play a 58.

[00:13:38]This 60° wedge that I have here is probably going to go 90 yd. My 58 is a 95 club.

[00:13:52]Well, all of a sudden now, I'm going to have a 15-yd gap here.

[00:13:55]Okay? That's what I think is going to happen.

[00:13:59]I'll tell you what we end up getting, but that's what I think is going to happen here.

[00:14:03]So, here we go.

[00:14:08]Let's see if that thing goes 90 yd.

[00:14:15]92 for 90 for 91. So, that look at right up here, this is your number. So, 79, which is about 5 mph less than the one before, and this one went 90. So, now all of a sudden, I've got a 105 and I've got what's a 92, so call it 90.

[00:14:32]So, I got a 15-yd gap. So, I've got 10-yd gaps at the start of my wedges and then all of a sudden, I jump into 15.

[00:14:40]And you may find this. And so, what would would be the the best play for me is to go from my 52, I'm going to play a 53, and then I'm going to play a 58. So, I'm going to hit my 58° wedge and show you what I'm talking about.

[00:14:57]So, here's the 58, which is actually, believe it or not, it's a 60, but it's bent to 58. That's a different topic of conversation.

[00:15:10]This thing should go 95 yd. The ball speed should pick up just a little bit as well.

[00:15:16]Okay, so and there we go.

[00:15:25]And come on up to the front because this is this what just worked out perfectly.

[00:15:30]And this is how I know cuz I I've hit this club so many times. That one flew 95 and 1/2 and it spun back to 94 and 1/2, which is pretty much 95. Ball speed jumped up to 81 and 1/2. Like there's all kinds of different things that take place with this. But, this is what I know is the right club for me. So, when I have 95, I'm right at home. I take this this 58° wedge. And so, what I like to do then is I I like to back into this now and go, okay, these are the wedges that I should play. These are the wedges that I want to play. Now, for me personally, and this is everybody's different. You start with this idea of 10° gaps.

[00:16:04]And then, you start to work in, okay, well, am I comfortable with partial wedges? Can I spread them out? Do I have enough room in my golf bag to have four or maybe even five wedges? And that is something that every individual has to kind of go through for themselves. But, the starting point is figure out your 9-iron. How far does that go? Figure out your gaps in distance. 8-iron to 9-iron, 10 yd. Then 9-iron to wedge, we want 10 yd. And then wedge to the next wedge, the gap, that probably is a 10-yd gap.

[00:16:36]Maybe it's a 15. And then you have to start asking yourself, okay, how can I make that thing the the gap that I want, whether I want it to be 10 or 15? How do I do it? And then can I manage those in between numbers? It's a very sort of rudimentary way to start your wedge fitting. And then once you've got the lofts figured out to where you want, that's when you start working on the bounce to make sure that these golf clubs are fit for you.

[00:17:00]To improve all parts of your game, subscribe to my channel and click the link below.