As you all know, I have been a wedge designer for over 30 years now, but unlike most of the other wedge designers you know of, I have not spent much time at all working with tour players. And to be honest, that is not where my interest has been for all this time. I much prefer to dive deep into the wants and needs, frustrations and disappointments of all of us who do not have anything near the extraordinary skills the tour players exhibit every round.

I think the tour players are in very good hands. In contrast to the very skilled gentlemen working with the game’s best, I have personally analyzed over 50,000 amateur golfer wedge fitting profiles, and have had hundreds of exchanges with golfers of all skill levels at dozens of demo days at private clubs and public courses over the years. Because of this focus, I feel like I have a pretty good handle on those challenges the majority face, and a great deal of my writing here on GolfWRX is to address those frustrations I hear all the time.

In the spirit of full disclosure, you all also probably know that I am a key player in the launch of a new wedge company, Edison Golf, and I firmly believe our Edison Forged wedges can help golfers of any skill level experience a dramatic improvement in distance consistency, spin generation, and shotmaking skill. They were designed specifically to do that, and have been proven to deliver markedly better “numbers” in shot dispersion and spin than the ‘tour design’ wedges that have dominated the category for decades.

But today’s article isn’t a self-promotion piece, but rather to share some ideas that any golfer can implement to improve the performance of whatever wedges are in your bag now (but I still hope you will give the Edison Forged wedges a try).

The wedge shaft is overlooked by the industry. I have my ideas why the overwhelming majority of wedges sold today are fitted with a heavy and stiff steel shaft, but it’s not logical when well over half of all golfers are playing lightweight steel or graphite in much softer flexes than what is found on the wedge racks.

I’ve long preached about the need for any golfer to have a “seamless transition” from their irons to their wedges, and that begins with the shaft. If you are playing a 70-80 gram graphite shaft in your irons, for example, your wedges can weight as much as two full ounces more than your short irons. So, what’s two ounces you ask? That’s a 12-15 percent increase in weight of the club, so you simply cannot make that same swing with a set-match pitching wedge and your off-the-rack gap wedge. I believe the best investment you can make in your current wedges is to have them re-shafted with something that is closer in weight and flex to whatever is in your irons.

Do your specs match your irons? If you are playing irons that have been custom fitted and have a non-standard shaft length lie angle, you should have your wedges altered to those same specifications, with one caveat – I have long believed that your wedges should be 1-2 degrees flatter in lie angle than your irons, as that facilitates the more “squatted” posture and lower hands that are crucial to better pitching and wedge play.

What about your grips? Again, if your wedges have grips that are different from your irons, that presents a disruption of feel through your set. I have long been a proponent of having the same grips throughout your set to make all the clubs feel “friendly” in your hands. The only departure I have from that opinion is that if you like the new reminder rib type grips on your long clubs, you might opt for the regular version of the same grip for your wedges, because you will occasionally hit shots with the face opened or closed, and that rib can feel awkward when you do.

So, there are three things you can do to improve your current wedges if you are not ready to replace them. (But if you are, I certainly hope you will check out what we are doing to wedges at Edison)