Golfworks publishes the COG in all of the irons specifications, but not the Wedges. So do what is your primary design focus for Wedges, is it a lower or higher COG than typical of the OEMs?
I expect that the slider style wedges are low, and I guess there is two obvious choices most golfers want with wedges, either more height or more spin, and a higher COG results in more spin and a lower trajectory. I am asking because I do prefer the latter :)
A lot is written about the cg on wedges, but the truth is, it is more difficult to manipulate the cg in wedges than in irons or woods. The main reason is that on traditional designed wedges, the hosels are usually pretty long, which pulls the cg up and to towards the hosel. Also, the overall size of the profile dictates, to a large part, the cg location. I see some wedges by other brands promoting cg’s in the center of the face, but I have yet to measure one where that is the case. We do our best to position the cg as close to the horizontal center of the face as possible and try to position it vertically where we want it based on the design. Very difficult to get there and generally ours, like ALL other wedges are a little heel side horizontally. The important thing to understand about cg in wedges is that it has very little influence on performance, especially the higher the loft is. The hit is an oblique strike, a glancing blow if you will, and cg simply has little to do with the ball flight or the feel on the higher lofted wedges. In the wedge category, loft is always going to be a major influence in trajectory and cg location will always be a minor influence. So, to answer your question, typically the cg is towards the heel side of center and higher on the OEM wedges we have measured. We do everything we can to improve this in our designs, but simply due to the nature of these traditional types of wedge designs, the cg’s still will be slightly towards the heel side. Our wider sole designs do tend to have the cg’s lower. Our M Series tended to have a slightly better horizontal location due to the amount of weight we put low and in the toe, but it was still not center of the face.
Britt Lindsey
Thanks Britt for all those details, fascinating stuff. I am asking because i often hit that shot with a wedge from the rough too high on the clubface and the ball comes out dead and soft, so lost some distance.
There is a certain wedge guy I have been a fan of for a while and he is passionate about his unique design factors, one of which is more mass higher in the clubface which would also bring the COG up, ball flight down and more spin. So i like his idea of having more mass higher in the head so dont get that dead shot.
does any of your designs have more mass higher up, than normal? obviously the slider and wide sole wedges dont.
Thanks for asking, I’m curious too with my bag having TS-1 PW & GW, 54 TSW and a 58 MS Grind.