Yahoo Sports Titleist Vokey WedgeWorks A Grind Lob Wedges
Gear: Titleist Vokey WedgeWorks A Grind Lob Wedges
Price: $225 with True Temper Dynamic Gold S200 shaft and Titleist Universal 360 grip
Specs: Cast 8620 carbon steel in 58-degree and 60-degree versions with 4 degrees of bounce. Right-hand only
Who they're for: Golfers who play on firm, tightly mowed courses and who want to hit higher-flying shots around the green.
What you should know: The WedgeWorks A Grind wedge is a low-bounce offering that has a narrow sole designed to skim over and through the turf, allowing players to make a shallow swing and clip the ball off tight lies and from wet, firmly packed bunkers.
The deep dive: When a former U.S. Open champion walks into a brand’s PGA Tour van and requests that a special club be made for him, the answer is always something to the effect of, “Yes, we’ll get to work on that right now.” That’s what happened when 2006 U.S. Open champion Geoff Ogilvy approached Aaron Dill, the Titleist PGA Tour rep for Vokey wedges, and said he wanted a lob wedge that would move through the turf more quickly than his low-bounce L Grind wedge.
Dill went to work on his grinding wheel and smoothed the seam in the sole of an L Grind wedge, leaving the bottom of the club smoother. Ogilvy put the wedge in his bag, and the A Grind was born. Now, Titleist’s boutique wedge brand, WedgeWorks, is once again offering it to the public.
To be clear, this wedge is not for the faint of heart or the timid. With only 4 degrees of bounce, it requires precision on the part of the player, but for golfers who sweep the ball off the ground and play on firm courses, it allows the leading edge to get under the ball more easily to create spin and height on greenside shots.
If the name of the wedge seems a little familiar, it should. Last July, Titleist released a limited run of WedgeWorks A+ Grind wedges. The difference between the A and the A+ is the standard A Grind has a narrow sole, while the A+ Grind, which was first made by smoothing the bottom of an M Grind wedge, has a wider sole and more bounce.
Like all Vokey SM10 lob wedges, the WedgeWorks A Grind has a high and forward center of gravity location to encourage a low, more controlled flight on full-swing shots, and that helps square the face at impact. It has wider, shallower grooves than SM10 pitching wedges and gap wedges (46 to 52 degrees) to get water and debris off the hitting surface and help the groove edges grab the cover of the ball to generate spin.
This article originally appeared on Golfweek: Titleist releases the A Grind lob wedges
