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Lob Wedge distance?

snicker.doodles said:
i carry a 58 but rarely use it in a full shot. my 54 gets 99% of my shots between 40 and 75 yards. inside 40 is the 58 but i wouldn't consider it full.....more finesse.
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I use my 58 lob just as snicker said. It's my go to club for around the green. Now if there is a steep upgrade which puts more loft on my lob, I gear it down to another stick.
 
85 yards is just at the limit of my 58. I don't really like hitting it that far with it though.


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Man some of the guys here murder their lob wedge from some of the posts. I can hit my 60* about 70 yards but never really push it that far. I don't like having to overswing a club as the results usually aren't favorable.
 
Overswing no, full swing yes.

I have difficulty understanding why people are saying they don't take full swings with the LW. First thing I did when I purchased my wedges was to find a nice level fairway and drop some balls at the red 100m marker. Then took some full swings to find the distances. Hence when I find myself at these lengths I know exactly what club and swing to go for. Often I try lay up to exactly these distances. I too feel that these shots are way easier than say a 3/4 swing closer to the pin.

Goes to say ofc that the majority of LW shots are not full swings, but if the distance fits a full swing, I see no reason to go down a club and hit a 3/4.
 
Gray Golf said:
I use my 58 lob just as snicker said. It's my go to club for around the green. Now if there is a steep upgrade which puts more loft on my lob, I gear it down to another stick.
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I'm the same way. I use it a lot around the green. At the most I'll take a three-quarter swing with it. The only exception, and this is very rare, is if I have to go for a very tight pin and the ball has to come in very high and soft. Other than that the first wedge I'll make a full swing on is my gap wedge.
 
Schweitzer_07 said:
Man some of the guys here murder their lob wedge from some of the posts. I can hit my 60* about 70 yards but never really push it that far. I don't like having to overswing a club as the results usually aren't favorable.
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no doubt! if i could get my pw 100-110 im happy
50yrds with my 60° is money and a full shot is pushing 60-65 yrds at the most
altho like i said before... ive bladed it to 120yrds or more... lol
 
58* is 90 yards and in. its also my sand club.
 
I use a 60 for 105 and in. It was the hardest club for me to learn and now it's the club in my bag I use the most.
 
a few years back I stopped carrying a lob and went with a three wedge set up.....the past year I started working heavily on my short game and put the 60 back in the bag. A full shot is about 75 yards, but I seldom use a full shot with my 55 or 60!
 
CarstenBF said:
Overswing no, full swing yes.

I have difficulty understanding why people are saying they don't take full swings with the LW. First thing I did when I purchased my wedges was to find a nice level fairway and drop some balls at the red 100m marker. Then took some full swings to find the distances. Hence when I find myself at these lengths I know exactly what club and swing to go for. Often I try lay up to exactly these distances. I too feel that these shots are way easier than say a 3/4 swing closer to the pin.

Goes to say ofc that the majority of LW shots are not full swings, but if the distance fits a full swing, I see no reason to go down a club and hit a 3/4.
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I understand what you're saying and I agree that a full swing with a shorter club is easier to control than a less-than-full swing with a longer one.

But, for me and I suppose many others, a full-swing wedge IS a 3/4 swing. What I guess I'm saying is that I think it's unnatural to take a wedge back to parallel (or at least that's how I've always felt).

Because a wedge is a control club, a relatively compact swing goes hand-in-hand with that concept. My typical wedge setup starts with the ball in the middle of my stance (or very slightly forward) and my stance itself is open with my left foot back a few inches from square. So from that position, it's difficult to actually get the club to parallel on my backswing because my body position won't allow it. But more importantly, I don't want it to go back any farther because it tends to create the potential for several problems which are non-existent with the 3/4 swing.

If I want to get "maximum distance" out of a wedge as you suggest in your post then I can set up square to the target line and move the ball slightly farther back in my stance or even (in some rare cases) slightly close my stance and play the ball even farther back.

But for me, those are "special circumstances". I'm not real big having a golf ball land on a green and suck back towards me like hard English on a cue ball (I've seen more shots end up rolling off the green that way than those which end up where they really do some good). My standard wedge shot generally lands on the green, bounces once, checks and trickles to a stop. Once in a while I'll play for a shot to really bite, but I can count those instances on one hand.

I once played with a guy who, on a 150 yard par 3, stood on the tee with a PW and set up with the ball off his right toe and who took the club back like Daly and he got the ball to the middle of the green and began congratulating himself and letting everyone in the group know that he did that with a PW. I did the same thing with an 8-iron only without the radical ball placement and over-contorted swing. The point is that yes it's possible to get a PW to go 150 yards, but what usually has to be done to get it there makes one think more of a contortionist than a golfer.

I don't know why this guy needed to accomplish this, but I'll bet that he since tells his friends that his "standard" PW is "about one-fifty", which makes it all about distance, which has little to do with what a PW was designed for.

My point is that if you feel comfortable with a full swing with a wedge, then by all means use it to its fullest advantage. But I suspect that many people are more obsessed with "how far" than they are with how accurate and that's not what a short game ought to be about.

Watch closely the next time you see the pro's play and I'll bet that in an entire afternoon's worth of coverage you'd be hard-pressed to find five players who took a wedge back to parallel from any distance except those which would be considered extreme or unusual. Most pro wedge swings bring their hands around ear-height or so because they're more concerned with "where" than they are with "how far".

So am I. :D


-JP
 
CarstenBF said:
I have difficulty understanding why people are saying they don't take full swings with the LW.
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Very rarely, on any course, will I take a full shot with my LW. Too many people will automatically pull out the 60 degree when they see the yardage they like, and not take into consideration all the factors. Less loft is easier to predict, less air is easier to control.
 
exactly right
the_paulo said:
Very rarely, on any course, will I take a full shot with my LW. Too many people will automatically pull out the 60 degree when they see the yardage they like, and not take into consideration all the factors. Less loft is easier to predict, less air is easier to control.
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I hit my 60 degree wedge to 90 yards with a full-swing. However, I rarely use the lob wedge for a full shot. I would rather take an easier swing with the 52 or 54.
 
CarstenBF said:
Overswing no, full swing yes.

I have difficulty understanding why people are saying they don't take full swings with the LW. First thing I did when I purchased my wedges was to find a nice level fairway and drop some balls at the red 100m marker. Then took some full swings to find the distances. Hence when I find myself at these lengths I know exactly what club and swing to go for. Often I try lay up to exactly these distances. I too feel that these shots are way easier than say a 3/4 swing closer to the pin.

Goes to say ofc that the majority of LW shots are not full swings, but if the distance fits a full swing, I see no reason to go down a club and hit a 3/4.
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Personally I find more problems trying to get a max distance out of a lob wedge than I do a partial SW. My margin of error is much higher with a full LW(blades, chunks, ect..). Plus I tend to really spin the wedges when I take full shots. There is a short par 3 at a course I normally play and I have spun LW's in to the creek with a full shot more times than I care to admit. Now when I play it I hit a 3/4 SW and just about every time it bounces and stops right in the middle of the green.

So while you may not understand why I don't like to hit full shots with a LW, I fully understand it. Less margin for error and less unknown amount of spin make it a no brainer for me. I have practiced many times on the range hitting full shots with the LW and find in my case I have better success hitting a 3/4 shot or knock down Since golf is about lower score, I do what I feel gives me that result.
 
Point taken. I'm fairly new to golf, so take anything I say with a grain of salt. It's just that I feel that a 1/2 or 3/4 swing opens up a whole new set of problems. Like thinning the ball (disaster) or hitting it fat. I'm simply more consistant in that respect with my normal swing. Probably a matter of practice I guess.
 
CarstenBF said:
Point taken. I'm fairly new to golf, so take anything I say with a grain of salt. It's just that I feel that a 1/2 or 3/4 swing opens up a whole new set of problems. Like thinning the ball (disaster) or hitting it fat. I'm simply more consistant in that respect with my normal swing. Probably a matter of practice I guess.
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there are a few teachers out there that take on the full swing philosophy... you arent alone

im in the category of "short game is mostly feel" school of thought and a full swing shouldnt be used inside of 100yrds... heck on one of the "flatter" courses out here i used my 5i from 10yrds off the green as a sort of long putter and it worked like magic against my buddy who was attempting to flop close ones with his lw
 
CarstenBF said:
Point taken. I'm fairly new to golf, so take anything I say with a grain of salt. It's just that I feel that a 1/2 or 3/4 swing opens up a whole new set of problems. Like thinning the ball (disaster) or hitting it fat. I'm simply more consistant in that respect with my normal swing. Probably a matter of practice I guess.
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I figure the LW is one of those clubs that will literally travel double the distance you want it to go if you hit it wrong

if you blade an 8 iron approach to the green, it's not going to overshoot the green by a mile (when compared to a properly struck shot)

the stakes are higher with the LW so I figure you've got to be sure you make decent contact
(the problems you'll run into by hitting the LW 1/2 or 3/4 are less drastic than the ones you can run into when trying to hit it hard)
 
My 58* goes 80 with a full swing. That's less that 20% of the swings i take with that club though :)
 
bogey_russ said:
there are a few teachers out there that take on the full swing philosophy... you arent alone

im in the category of "short game is mostly feel" school of thought and a full swing shouldnt be used inside of 100yrds... heck on one of the "flatter" courses out here i used my 5i from 10yrds off the green as a sort of long putter and it worked like magic against my buddy who was attempting to flop close ones with his lw
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For me at least, there's a big difference between pitching (perhaps 25-70 yards) and chipping. If I'm pitching, I'm probably using my 58*. But inside of 25 yards, I only use the 58 if it's mandatory due to missing on the wrong side or whatever.
 
CarstenBF said:
Point taken. I'm fairly new to golf, so take anything I say with a grain of salt. It's just that I feel that a 1/2 or 3/4 swing opens up a whole new set of problems. Like thinning the ball (disaster) or hitting it fat. I'm simply more consistant in that respect with my normal swing. Probably a matter of practice I guess.
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Spot on. By all means, if you feel more confident with a full LW, take it. As people have said, the closer in you get, the more feel matters. It is all about practice with the short clubs, and you'll probably find that the more you practice with the different clubs and the different flights you can produce around the green, you'll start using different shots depending on the circumstances.
 
I hit my LW 75 yards on a full swing, 50-55 with a half swing.
 
My range with my 58* wedge is about 80-85 yards. I can add 5-10 yards by putting it back in my stance and closing the face a little bit, I hit a fun shot to 3 feet yesterday doing that. I'm like some people in this thread, I prefer to hit "full" shots with my LW, I'm better at choking down on the club when I need to take a little distance off as opposed to taking a shorter swing. I'll also use the 58* along with my 54* for most shots around the greens.
 
Can't get that distance

Can't get that distance

Barberakb said:
What do you guys normally hit your Lob wedge on a full shot? I can only hit mine about 75 yards. It's a 60 degree. Just wondering if that's normal.
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I have been using a 60 Cleveland Brass and get great drop and die but there is no way I can get it to fly as far as you guys do. It's great within 40 yards and that's my max.
What am I doing wrong?
I don't hit the ball like I'm trying to kill it, I just take a smooth full swing for my longest shots.
I seem to get under the ball well and it sticks with no more than 3-4 feet of bounce or roll, never any backspin to cause it to back up.
Sometimes I get under the ball too much and I'll hit it short but it sticks like a lawn dart.
What's up?
 
I hit my 60 as far as 100 but I've become less consistent with that shot. I usually use it inside 80 yards and use my 56 for the 80-110 range depending on the pin.
 
DocHaley said:
I have been using a 60 Cleveland Brass and get great drop and die but there is no way I can get it to fly as far as you guys do. It's great within 40 yards and that's my max.
What am I doing wrong?
I don't hit the ball like I'm trying to kill it, I just take a smooth full swing for my longest shots.
I seem to get under the ball well and it sticks with no more than 3-4 feet of bounce or roll, never any backspin to cause it to back up.
Sometimes I get under the ball too much and I'll hit it short but it sticks like a lawn dart.
What's up?
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My guess is you're adding loft at impact or hitting the ground first. For what it's worth, I almost never swing a full LW on the course. If fact, I think I've done it once in the last two seasons.
 
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