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Traditional PW and SW

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Oleschool

Oleschool

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Are they really just 10 and 11 irons?

a nine has a little more loft than an 8

a PW has a little more loft than a nine

a SW has a little more loft than a PW

call them 10 and 11 irons

I saw a teaching lesson from AP and he called a sand wedge a sand iron!

Just wondering? Any experts around?
 
It’s all semantics in my opinion since there isn’t a set loft for any numbered or alphabetized iron. So long as you know what you’re hitting, or whomever you’re talking to is understanding, I don’t think it really matters.

Personally, I think knowing your carry distances is much more important. Followed later by specific club loft.
 
I have a set of Harvey Penick irons (from Golfsmith) circa mid 90s that is 3-10, the 10 iron is the PW.
 
 
My 718 AP1 PW and GW match my set and I use them as irons. Basically they are a 10 and 11 iron. I then have a Vokey 52 GW and 56 SW that are my true wedges.
 
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No, they aren't just 10 and 11 irons. Wedges are designed for different purposes than those clubs and have different characteristics and features as a result. Most prominent is the sole of the club. Wedges generally have a wider sole that is exposed when you set up with the hands/grip neither ahead of nor behind the clubhead. So these clubs are designed to ride on the sole as opposed to dig in with the leading edge, which is how you make a divot with 3-9 irons. Many wedges also have a grind pattern on the sole to help control how the wedge glides through sand in the bunker and reacts to having the face open or closed to control ball height and distance.

There are other differences as well. But they too generally have to do with the different tasks and versatility required of wedges versus your 3-9 irons.
 
YukonLiving said:
It’s all semantics in my opinion since there isn’t a set loft for any numbered or alphabetized iron. So long as you know what you’re hitting, or whomever you’re talking to is understanding, I don’t think it really matters.

Personally, I think knowing your carry distances is much more important. Followed later by specific club loft.
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There is semantics (one man's 7 iron is another man's 6 iron), then there are bounce and grind changes. Typically a "set" PW, GW, and maybe even SW will follow similar offset, bounce, and sole width/shape trends as compared to the preceding irons. "specialty" wedges will often have choices for bounce and/or grind, and can be optimized for certain turf conditions, lie, swing type, etc. While I know what the carry distance is for all my wedges, the distance isn't necessarily the determining factor in which club I grab.
 
I would say a set PW and GW would be considered a 10 and 11 iron.
 
Honma makes a 10 iron if I’m not mistaken.
 
hedley_lamarr08 said:
Honma makes a 10 iron if I’m not mistaken.
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Yep. Lots of them. 11's too.

The argument whether or not PW's and SW's are just 10 and 11 irons is kind of silly. They are. 10 and 11 irons just aren't 'specialty' wedges. Doesn't mean they're not fine or anything. Too many people play traditional specialties anyway. The current, and beneficial trend to play cavity wedges in that range like CBX's is what a lot of those set PW, AW, SW, 10, 11 irons already were/are, except they usually cost less and actually match the rest of your clubs visually.
 
My Callaway set has a 10 iron then a P,S,L. Think they are Big Bertha 2002 or could be older.
 
Don’t buy into the knowing carry distance , focus yes it nice but it only part of the equation of variables in a shot.

My set is , 6-9I and pw gw sw, all from same species, and genus.

Labelling of club doesn’t matter for me , happily strike a sand wedge as well as pw,gw, from fairway comfortably and uniformly.

Agree though , differentiation of 10/11 v sw pw etc. in terms of characteristic design and prefered performance conditions.

🙂
 
My set PW is basically a 10 iron, and I prefer it that way. I mostly use it for full swings and half swings, and leave the greenside shots to the lob wedge.

For a sand wedge, the face is a lot steeper than "11 iron" would have you think. Most PWs have 45-48 ish degrees of loft, whereas a SW usually has 56. They are really a 12 or 13 iron if you want to phrase it that way. And all the set SWs I have seen without a specialty bounce were junk at playing out of sand.
 
Some manufacturers used to call the PW a 10 iron... maybe some still do. But I can’t argue with your logic they just have another name 🤷🏻‍♂️. Is a lob wedge a 13 iron?! That’s my new name for mine with immediate effect.
 
Unless you're talking pre-World War II then even the most "traditional" set would have at least one club in it that's a wedge (with a wider, differently shaped sole) rather than an iron. Whether you call it Sand Wedge, Sand Iron, whatever that type of club was an innovation that pretty fundamentally changed how one part of the game is played.

That said, I've played with iron sets that went all the way up to LW but they were Super Game Improvement irons where the soles on the longer clubs weren't that different than sand wedge soles. So if they had been marked 10, 11, 12, 13 that wouldn't have been totally inappropriate.

You can play with a set that's all hybrids (HB Turbo, T-Rail) or a set that's all wide-soled irons (Ping G-series, Callaway Big Berthas) and not necessarily need a "sand club" that's entirely different than the other irons. But you'd be really making it harder on yourself to play a set that's all thin-soled blade irons. That said, there were certainly many generations of golfers in the early decades of the 20th century that did just that!
 
All semantics. They are whatever their particular golfer wants to call them.

If I were to lable mine as a numbered iron, they would be my 10 pw (48*), and 12 sw (56*) irons. My 11 iron would be my (52*) AW. My (60*) LW could be my 13 iron. Some what confusing to me.

Some golfers just call them by the loft number on the club.

I've never seen wedges stamped with 10, 11, 12, or 13 on them. With all the different lofts available, wedges would probably need to be numbered 11.5 or something like that.

In my bag, they are just called pw, aw, sw, and lw. The distance, and/or the type of shot needed tells me which club to pull.
 
hedley_lamarr08 said:
Honma makes a 10 iron if I’m not mistaken.
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sure do. my tr20p pw has a 10 on the sole.

to op i tend to agree but only about the pw. my pw and even tw are exclusively full swing, but could be used for bump and run on occasion (no different than another iron though).

but sw is most certainly not just another iron. i chip. i pitch. i hit it out of the sand. it serves a very versatile function unlike pretty any other club. even more versatile than my 60.
 
Does it matter?
 
I took a closer look and my 9 iron and pw are identical except for angle but loft is the same as far as I could see, and it’s labeled just P
 
Oleschool said:
I took a closer look and my 9 iron and pw are identical except for angle but loft is the same as far as I could see, and it’s labeled just P
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I'm lost. What "angle" are you referring to if not loft?
 
leftshot said:
I'm lost. What "angle" are you referring to if not loft?
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not loft kinda hard to explain
Angle from front to back or back to front away from the shaft

hope that helps
 
Oleschool said:
not loft kinda hard to explain
Angle from front to back or back to front away from the shaft

hope that helps
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Grind/bounce perhaps?
 
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