Welcome to Swing Theory Golf, the ultimate podcast for the golf enthusiast.
I'm your host, Tim McElvanagh, PGA Professional, and I'm thrilled to be joined by my co-host
Sean Clautz, a seasoned PGA Professional as well as over 20 years' experience in the
golf industry.
Join us as we delve into the world of golf, covering everything from swing tips to top-notch
golf destinations.
We will discuss the greatest golfers of all time and explore the latest golf trends in
the game of golf.
Get ready to tee off with Swing Theory Golf, your source for all things golf.
Let's dive in.
Welcome back everybody.
We're here at swingtheorygolf.com.
I'm your host, Tim McElvanagh, and my co-host, Sean Clautz.
Hey golfers, how you doing?
Good.
So today we're going to talk about the lob wedge, mastering the lob wedge, if you need
the lob wedge, and who needs the lob wedge.
So Sean, in your years of experience, do you think that most amateurs would need a lob
wedge?
Do you think most amateurs would need a lob wedge?
No, not at all.
Right?
I don't want to be the bad guy out here.
I'm going to relate a pretty quick, Tim Mc, to just kind of saying this.
When I coached high school golf, and you helped me out as well, we were both kind of coaching
the Zephyr Hills High School golf team.
I think one of the first clubs that we ever pulled out of kids' bags was the lob wedge.
Get that out of there.
It's a specialty club.
It's needed or necessary on tour because their conditions are way different than the
golf that most of our golf listeners are playing.
The surface that they're playing on is greatly different than what we're playing on, for
sure.
Right.
Yeah.
So on the negative side of lob wedge, it's way more consistent for our listener to get
the ball on the ground quickly and let it roll out.
Yeah.
Especially if you're a beginner.
Get that thing on the ground rolling as quick as possible.
Get the flying putt.
That's what I like to call it.
You know, the flying putt.
Yeah.
That would be more geared towards an eight iron or even a seven iron, that type of chip
shot, which is a whole different segment, whole different podcast.
In the relationship to a lob wedge, that's why we would like you to try to keep the ball
low to the ground.
Like you said, flying putt, let it run, read the break, whatever that is.
So on the opposite side, if we were going to say, hey, okay, well, I feel like I'm kind
of moving my game up or I'm ready for the next club that's going to change my handicap
index.
Correct.
Because it certainly can.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
It was designed for a reason.
It can be an unbelievable tool.
Yes.
You know, you just got to, if you take nothing else away from today's podcast, it would be
swing your lob wedge the same speed that you swing your driver.
So what I mean by that is I think the player who mishits the 60 degree, which is typically
the lob wedge 60, maybe 58, but kind of 58, 60.
Yeah.
Sometimes you might even see a 64 out there, but usually 58 to 60.
The player who mishits that club is the one who decelerates.
Correct.
And stops moving.
Yeah.
And the ball's not going to go anywhere.
Like it doesn't, it's not going to travel a hundred yards.
Yeah.
It's designed.
To go up in the air.
At 60 degree loft.
Yeah.
To get up in the air.
So if you do some of the basic chipping fundamentals, you know, which is for, for again, I would
say definitely have to keep weight on your left side.
Yep.
Ball back in your stance a little bit.
Ball back in your stance.
Yep.
Or at least back center.
And, you know, swing your body, don't swing just your hands.
Right.
That's another one, which again, for consistency sake, if I was trying to teach somebody, hey,
I want to hit something higher up in the air.
I'm going to tell them to essentially move their chest to the right, get their arms extended
and the club is part of the extension of the arms.
Correct.
And then move back to the left.
Yep.
And I think follow throughs always need to be longer than backswings.
Yes.
Acceleration.
Yeah.
You know, that's, that's what's going to give you that acceleration when you come through.
You know, I always kind of tell some of my students, make it feel like it's more short
to long.
Yeah.
And I think that condensation of, you know, I'm going to accelerate through the ball.
Yep.
As you said, a lot of people decel.
Yep.
And then, and hit down into it.
Yes.
You know, that's kind of another misconception is if I got to get the ball up in the air,
I've got to hit up on it or swing it up in the air.
And you've got 64 degrees of loft, you don't need to help it up anymore.
No.
You know?
So hitting down to the, you know, into the ball and that's why we put the ball position
back to the, a little further back in our stance because that just helps promote that
angle of attack.
That downward strike that we're looking for.
Yep.
And then realistically let the club do the work.
Don't, don't add wrist motion to it.
All right.
I'm going to preface that.
I'm going to say that, but then maybe two minutes I might come back to something where
I talk about wrist motion.
Okay.
But for the, for the, again, for the, we'll call it novice.
Somebody who's just trying to start to learn how to use, and everything we're talking about,
by the way, should be applied to a 56 degree or a sand nudge too.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
It's not just a lob wedge conversation, but to hit down on the ball, to have your weight
on your front side, your left side, to kind of lean towards your left side.
And I think another thing I see, T Mac, when we see the player who's trying to get the
ball up in the air, when they start their backswing, they move their weight shift to
the right.
Okay.
Yeah.
And now you're out of position.
Yeah.
Essentially.
Yeah.
You're just, you're too far to the right.
You're too far back, which then when you start your downswing, it almost tends them to blade
it.
Yeah.
So that's why we kind of promote the idea of, hey, just start your weight on your left
side, move your arms to the right.
Don't move your weight to the right.
Just move your arms to your torso again.
Turn your torso to the right, which brings your arms going to the right.
And basically return the golf club with something we kind of, again, didn't really mention to
the players.
Because when you're setting up to it, you should have the handle slightly forward.
Yes.
Of the club head.
Correct.
At impact.
Yes.
And that's the return position we're trying to get back to.
Right?
Again, I think the error is when the person returns the club head to the ball first before
their hands have gotten there.
Correct.
You know?
So my stupid little analogy is the swimmer and the shark.
Okay.
All right?
So the swimmer is the grip and the shark is the club head.
Okay.
Okay, so go with me on this one.
I know it's a little goofy.
But as you take the club back, you know, the shark, the club head is behind your hands,
which is the swimmer.
When you return back to the ball, make sure the grip, the swimmer, is always out racing
the shark, which is the club, to the ball.
Great analogy.
It gives you a good visual right there.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
And as we talk about people sometimes decelerating through impact, what they're really doing
is the club head's moving faster and the hands are stopped moving.
Yeah, the club's going past the hands.
The body's stopped moving.
So, you know, three o'clock in the morning, when you guys wake up tonight, you'll be thinking
about the swimmer and the shark.
But sometimes, you know, some of these little analogies will kind of fit in.
Absolutely.
When you're out there on the golf course, you know, having those little thoughts definitely
help you a lot.
Now, the other thing is practice time.
You know, I think people need to realize before they go out and get this 64, 60-degree wedge
how much you really have to practice this, you know, and practice where this shot is
landing, how much it's rolling out.
Where to use it.
When to use it, you know.
I see a lot of people, especially the younger students, they get married to the thing.
I mean, it could be, you know, three feet off the collar and they're flopping this thing
where you could just hit a little eight iron, you know, even a putter, you know, at this
point.
So, I think, you know, using it at the right times is just as vital as how you practice
as well.
Right.
You know, making sure that you, you know, just don't fall in love with the club and,
you know, utilizing different shots around the green are really going to help you quite
a bit other than just getting married to that 60.
We're based out of Florida, you know, just outside of Tampa.
And I'll tell you, you know, as a listener, I pretty much don't hit the lob ledge for probably
five months out of the year.
Correct.
Right.
And that's our winter time.
Yeah.
That tends to come in.
And we get that question a lot.
How do you hit off of a tight line?
Well, you don't take a highly lofted club.
Yeah.
Hitting off of a tight fairway line.
With 12 degrees of bounce or, you know, whatever it is.
We're going to try to get something, again, rolling quickly.
So we're going to take that nine iron and bump and run it.
Yeah.
So, I mean, bunkers, it's very useful for bunkers.
No question about it.
Especially high lipped bunkers or something where you got to hit it shorter.
Yeah.
I would say that that's one of those things that if I get a 10 to 15 yard bunker shot,
I'm probably going to hit my lob wedge because I know what it's going to do.
But if I've got that 25 yard bunker shot, I'm not going to try to hit lob wedge harder.
No.
I'm going to do what we tell our listeners on the other side in the fairways.
Take the longer club.
Take something like a 56.
Yeah.
And make the same swing.
And you're going to get a longer result.
Correct.
And you're going to try to hit something harder.
Yeah.
If you try to go with the 60 and try to go harder, you're probably going to go underneath
it, one of the two, or you're just going to sky it up even higher.
Or shank it.
A lot of times in the bunker.
Yeah.
You get that too.
And again, it's a good analogy because when they do shank it, what they're doing is they're
stopping their hands.
Correct.
With the club that is just kind of coming through and it's usually open.
Obviously, it's usually a shank.
It's typically a shot that's hit off the hosel.
They haven't rotated the face.
Yeah.
All the things we talked about in normal golf swings.
So where to use it, super important.
Typically, either good fairway, we'll call it, higher rough.
Yeah.
It can be super... I mean, it's almost a club that you can't use any other club effectively
unless you have a lob wedge from a high rough, thick rough, soft sand.
So we don't want to come off saying that this is a club that's bad.
This is a great club.
You've got to practice with it and know, as you said, where to utilize that club at.
Yeah.
Again, for the listener, please go check out a Phil Nicholson YouTube, basically discusses
chipping.
There's a bunch of different chipping Phil Nicholson videos on YouTube.
The one that I was specifically talking about is where he really talks about, he's like,
hey, there's five fundamentals to chipping.
And we've already covered a few of them as far as weight position forward, hands forward.
Don't switch off to the right, don't move to the right side.
But the one that I think is interesting, which even as an instructor for 15 years, I didn't
really teach it this way.
Then I started using it in my own game.
Maybe the greatest wedge player in the world.
He's onto something there, all right.
Yeah.
Might have figured something out.
But essentially is if you want to hit the ball high, you move the ball position way
forward, left of your front foot.
And that's how you hit that ball high and soft.
And if you want to hit the ball low, you move the ball position behind your right foot.
And his theory in that is that you never play the ball position in the middle.
Correct.
But again, it's Phil Nicholson.
Right.
He's a different animal.
But I've gone to that technique here lately.
And I think having that ball up in your stance, making sure your weight is forward.
You've got to make sure that you're hitting down on this ball.
You're going to get a lot of spin, you're going to get a lot of stop.
But as I said, it's one of those shots that I've had to practice quite a bit on.
And I can't say it's 100%.
I've got it in the bag.
But I'd say 90% of the time I'm executing that shot.
But when it doesn't work, bye bye baby.
So as I said, practicing it is definitely vital to that club.
And not just going up pounding driver.
That's what everyone wants to practice.
The last thing I'll say about the wedge, because this is a slightly shorter segment,
essentially is pick out one that looks good to you.
Pick out one that doesn't always need to be the 180 wedge prices have gone up considerably over the last five years.
But somewhere, I'm going to say probably 100 to $175 is what you're going to plan on paying for one club.
Which again, drivers are 600 now or 500.
Hey, this is a club that could really lower my score.
It could save you two or three shots easily in a round.
So I don't care what the name of the brand is.
We're not brand specific.
I don't think we are.
When we discuss our clubs here, we just want to kind of give an objective view on golf clubs.
Absolutely.
But I will say that Cleveland, Callaway, TaylorMade, Titleist, Mizuno, Ping,
those are probably the five that most people know, Wilson actually has really good looking wedges.
They've got really good wedges.
Yeah, and sometimes a little lower price than some of the other guys we just mentioned.
But I don't think it really matters.
It's just there's some different condition or some different like some rusts, some don't.
Some are black, some are satin, some are tour finish, some are raw.
What I've read so far is essentially that I just read an article about the tour raw finish for the Cleveland.
They may not want to hear this, but there is not more friction on a tour raw finish wedge than there is on a standard satin finish.
They advocate that it is, but there really isn't a touch.
Psychological.
Yeah, exactly.
So find something that looks good to you.
I really keep coming back up because I want to feel, just like my putter,
I want to feel when I look down at that club that I'm going to execute the shot.
Confident, right?
Yeah.
I'm confident that I'm going to execute that shot, as you said, and pull it off.
And then like with the Zipcore world, meaning Cleveland, there's going to be, they have a club called a full face.
And what that means is it's more of a cavity back.
And that might be a really good option for that kind of 8 to 25 handicapped golfer who still wants the benefit of the 60 degree,
but they want the benefit of also being able to miss hit the club a little bit.
A little bit more forgiving, right?
And I think the lines go all the way across the face instead of having that little stop.
So even if you kind of hit it off the toe a little bit, you're going to get a little spin.
So that's that forgiveness that they're talking about there, for sure.
Hopefully that gives you guys some good thoughts with the lob wedge.
Don't be scared of it.
Just put the time and effort and practice into it.
Correct.
And go lower your score because I know that it's really helped me become a better short game player,
but you had to put the time and effort into it.
Yes, a lot of work on it.
So once again, I want to say thank you from Swing Theory Golf.
I'm your host, Tim McElvanagh with Sean Klotz.
From One Stop Golf Club.
Come on down and see us.
Thank you so much.
Have a great day.
Thank you for tuning in and teeing off with Swing Theory Golf.
Keep swinging, keep improving, and stay tuned for more exciting episodes.
This is Tim McElvanagh signing off.