Wedges!

Dan Doc is with us. He is the teaching professional at Windmill Lakes and one of the architects with our golf guy. Dan, one thing that has become very in vogue, I think, in the last decade are the use of wedges. Gosh, I remember growing up, you had a pitching wedge, and then there was this new thing called a sand wedge. Well, now there's all sorts of degrees of wedges, and a lot of players and people I play with have sometimes three. to four wedges in their bag. So talk about the evolution of the wedge and where we are as non-professionals, our use of wedges. Yeah, I think the difference now, too, and Dave, the way they're making the sets of golf clubs, it used to be a pitching wedge was 48 degrees. Okay, you had a pitching wedge, and like you said, you had a sandwich wedge. Nowadays, the pitching wedges in most sets are 43 degrees. So now you think about it, your pitching wedge is really a nine-hurn, so... Instead of having a pitching wedge and now we have a pitching wedge, we have a gap wedge, which the gap wedge tends to be 48 or 50 degrees in your set, and then you need something from there. So if you're 50, you know, you want to go 55 and then 60. So a lot of people will go 60, 56, some people will go 52, 50, you know, 54, 58, but you probably need four wedges in your bag if you're going to do it right. And I think around these areas. There's a demand for a 60 degree in your bag because of the firmness of green, the rough, you know, trying to get it up and down. But, yeah, you really have to do some gaping. We do a lot of fitting it with a golf turn just for wedges. And so we want to get you the proper wedges in your back. If you don't, I've seen people where they have a 43-degree and then they go to 56. Well, that doesn't do anything and do you a whole lot of good because that's your scoring area down there. I'd much rather have a full shot with a 50-degree than trying to. you know, steer up 43 degree to that distance. So it's really, really important to make sure you have proper gaping down at the bottom of the set and understand what the waltz are in all your golf clubs, especially the actual set makeup when you're making that purchase. Yeah, I agree. And, you know, what's interesting in today's golf courses as well, right, Dan? You get that area a lot of times because sometimes the length or sometimes the shortness of the holes. You get those 50, 40, 30, 30 yard ends and sometimes you're left in the middle where if you just have a sand you don't have quite enough and you have the pitching wedge I know I get faced with this a lot it's too much you need something in between there Yeah, absolutely. And it's so important to understand how far you can hit a 60-yard shot. What club do you need? How far is a 70-yard? And it may not be a full swing. You might say, okay, if I take this half and I extend my arm back like I'm shaking hand, make my normal golf swing, I know that goes 65 yards, you know, with a 56 degree. You know, if you have a back pin, you might want to drive it a little bit more. If you have a front pin, you might want to use a lot wedge a little bit more. I think some of the misconceptions, too, you see bounce on the golf clubs, which is... You know, you'll see a number, which is 10, 8, 4, 12, 14. You know, so they're all designed. And when we fit people, we're fitting them for their golf swing, what kind of bounce you want to have. You know, the softer conditions, the softer stand, you want to have a little of the bounce when you go in there and there's wedges. So you don't want to really have a low, low 60-degree bounce, you know. So I would tell people to have 10-12 around this area, eight maybe, depending. If you're, if you take a big divot.

you want to have a little bit more balance. If you're somebody that picks a golf ball, you don't want as much bounce out of the fairway. So talk to somebody that understands that when you're getting fit for that, and that'll help you to pick to the right club with the right amount of bounce as well. Dan, I did get a text question. A gentleman, John sent me a text, and he said, I love the golf segment with Dan. I can't tell you how much I've been able to pick up through the years. His question was, he went into a local store the other day. and saw three on the bottom of it, and it said rescue club, and it had three in a certain degree, and he was wondering what type of club that is. Now, me gut feeling thinks that that must be some sort of hybrid, but Dan, expand maybe what that is when it says rescue club on the bottom in a number three. I think they started that because it was like rescue me. Don't let it get a long iron anymore. So it's kind of like your savior because they're so easy to hit. It is a hybrid. So when they call them a rescue club or a hybrid, there'll be a degree on the bottom a lot of times if it has a number three, basically saying this is going to replace your three iron in your set. So it's probably about an 18 to 20 degree club in that window. It's a little bit shorter than, say, a five wood or seven wood, so sometimes a little bit easier to control. And they call it a hybrid or, you know, because it's kind of a transition from that iron over into, say, a five wood, you know, or a three wood. So some people prefer hybrid. Some people prefer seven wood. So it's basically based on how high you are able to hit the golf ball. You know, you're going to hit a seven wood a little bit higher than you are a hybrid. Better players tend to have the hybrids in their bag because they can elevate that golf ball pretty easily. All right. So there you go, John. Hopefully that answered it for you. Rescue Club means help. Rescue me. No three irons in your bag, please. All right. Hey, my friend, looks like a great weekend for golf, huh? Weather's going to be pretty good for it. Oh, it is. Hey, if you can't stop out, we have our tent here out at Windmill Lake. We'll get 10,000 people through here this week, and it's fantastic. Our customers are great. I guess we have a bag, tent, a club tent, shoe tent, ladies' tent. You know, just everything in golf. So we go all the way through Sunday. So we'll be here 10 to 7.30 today, tomorrow, and until 2 o'clock on Sunday. So we get a chance up out to Windmill Lake's golf course. It's fabulous. It's been going on for 35 years, our 10th sales. Really a lot of fun. Yeah, it's great, too. I've been out to the last few years, not only clubs, but apparel. You've got a ton of great apparel on sale. Thousands and thousands of shirts. I don't want to carry him in. So come buy him, please. All right, my friend. We'll do it again next week. Thanks for Abby. Have a great weekend.