All golfers carry one or more golf wedges, but possibly the most misunderstood club in golfers’ bags is the one marked “P” or “PW”, what we have always called the pitching wedge.  In terms of wedge loft, the pitching wedge is typically the highest lofted club in the matched set of irons, and in today’s golf industry, can range anywhere from 42.5 to 48 degrees of loft.  Generally, when it comes to golf scoring, the pitching wedge is used for full-swing approach shots, but also is an excellent club for pitching, chipping and even long shots from sand traps or bunkers.  But it wasn’t always that way.

HISTORY OF THE PITCHING WEDGE

As the notion of “matched” sets of irons began to materialize in the 1930s, golf club lofts and lengths were much different than they are today.  The “niblick” had been the highest lofted club most golfers carried, with a loft of 45-47 degrees being common.  As irons evolved from names to numbers, this became the 9-iron in these matched sets.  And the golf equipment manufacturers began supplementing this with an even higher lofted club of 49 to 51 degrees, calling it a “pitching wedge”.

Golfers quickly learned that this was indeed a remarkable scoring tool, allowing the player to execute higher and softer approach shots with more backspin for control.  But the pitching wedge also proved to be an excellent golf wedge for chipping, pitching and bunker play.  Very quickly, every company began to include a pitching wedge in their matched sets of irons, so that the “standard” set included 9 clubs, 2-iron through pitching wedge.

Some companies simply put “W” on the sole of the pitching wedge, while others opted for “P” or “PW”.  MacGregor golf and a few others noted this highest lofted iron as the “10” iron, but the most unique naming was given by the Ben Hogan Company.  Mr. Hogan was a master with the pitching wedge during the height of his golf in the late 1940s and early 1950s.  His fellow professional golfers came to refer to his pitching wedge as the “equalizer”, so when Ben Hogan started his own equipment company in 1953, the pitching wedge was given that name “Equalizer”.  In nearly every set of Hogan irons ever made, the highest lofted iron – the pitching wedge – was labeled “Equalizer” or simply “E”, as everyone came to know the meaning of that nickname.

GETTING THE MOST FROM YOUR PITCHING WEDGE

Traditional pitching wedges of 48-51 degrees of loft are extremely versatile scoring clubs.  On full shots, they can provide pinpoint accuracy for approaches on short par 4 and most par 5 holes.  Around the greens, they give the golfer a versatile tool for chipping and pitching.  With an increased bounce compared to the other short irons, the pitching wedge is even an excellent club for longer bunker shots.

The key to good pitching wedge play is to control your swing speed to about 85% of what you would normally consider a “full swing” with a middle-iron.  Keeping the swing speed under control delivers a lower and more boring trajectory, and actually enhances backspin.  The other key to hitting good pitching wedge shots is to keep the lead side (left for right handed players) in control throughout the swing.  A strong left side allows the hands to pass the ball before the clubhead, so that backspin is optimized and distance consistency is improved.

THE DEMISE OF THE PITCHING WEDGE

Unfortunately for golfers, modern golf club design has all but eliminated this valuable golf wedge from most sets.  As noted, most of the original pitching wedges were built with 50-51 degrees of loft, which gave them their scoring versatility.   Golfers carried “sand wedges” but those clubs were relegated to only those occasions when the ball was actually in the sand trap.  All other short range scoring shots were executed with the pitching wedge.

As the industry developed the investment casting technique in the late 1960s, and began to create various “cavity back” iron designs, it was found that the higher lofted irons with this design would deliver trajectories that were much too high.  So iron manufacturers began to decrease the lofts in order to address this poor performance.  Through the 1970s and 1980s, lofts of the pitching wedge crept steadily downward on these increasingly popular designs, taking the pitching wedge to 46-47 degrees, which made it go much further on full swings, but negated the pitching wedge’s versatility around the greens.  The sand wedge became a more heavily used club for most golfers and the increasing loft difference between the pitching wedge and the sand wedge gave rise to the development of the gap wedge.

Modern golf club design principles have continued to erode the lofts of the golf wedges in golfers bags to where it is not uncommon to find sets with clubs marked “pitching wedge” with as little as 42-44 degrees of loft – what was once an 8-iron in the bags of the greats like Hogan, Nelson, Demaret and Snead, or a 9-iron in the days of Palmer, Nicklaus, Watson and Miller.

KNOW YOUR PITCHING WEDGE LOFT

With today’s wide range of lofts in irons from various manufacturers and different models within any manufacturer’s range, the key to putting together a correct set of golf wedges is to know your lofts.  Regardless of what the club might say on the bottom, all “P-clubs” are not created equal, and every golfer needs that scoring club of 49-52 degrees – a true “pitching wedge”.  From there you can build your set of scoring clubs, precisely selecting the other golf wedges with 4- or 5-degree loft gaps between them.  A precision set of wedges in this way will make any golfer’s short game better.