Should you have shaft lean with wedges?
To consistently hit solid, penetrating shots with their distance wedges, the best players in the world lean the shaft forward at impact by 10°-15°.
If you don't already do it, focus on hitting down, leaning the shaft towards the target at impact, and taking a divot with your wedges. It will make you hit it more solid, which in turn will put more spin on the ball. As far as the lie goes, you must have a clean lie to spin the ball.
Having forward shaft lean at Impact for your irons allow your hands to stay ahead of the club head at impact. This allows the club to be moving down as it enters the hitting area. The result is that the ball is struck higher on the face.
Excessive shaft lean
This isn't to say that a lot of great golfers have a bit of this, but too much at address or during your swing can certainly make the club tend to get stuck when it interacts with the turf. One of my favorite ways to minimize this is to hit golf balls from a low tee with your feet together.
A golf shaft that's too stiff won't produce the higher loft, especially for those with slower golf swings. The lower loft will hurt your distance. You may feel more harshness to your shots even with impact at the center.
Many amateurs try to achieve more shaft lean at impact by increasing their wrist hinge (increasing radial deviation). However, it often leads to open clubface and the need to make last-moment corrections.
How Do Pros Get So Much Backspin? Professional golfers can spin the ball with ease because they compress the golf ball into the ground with a descending blow at a high swing speed. Also, they are using softer golf balls, which allow for more spin and the finest golf clubs available on the market.
Regardless of technique, conditions must be right in order to spin a wedge. You need: 1) clean grooves, 2) a decent fairway lie, and 3) a high-performance ball. If you're in the rough or the grass is wet, you've got no chance.
The spin rate off a driver generally ranges between 2,000 and 4,000 rpm, while the average, cleanly struck wedge shot spins at about 10,000 rpm.
Now, obviously all of this is dependent on things like strike and club path, but generally a little forward lean in the shaft will take a few degrees of loft off of the club and lead to a little more distance.
How important is shaft lean in golf?
For many amateur golfers, golf shaft lean is not something that they have thought about previously. However, this element of your game is quite important, and it plays a role in your performance from the full swing on down into your chipping and putting.
A golfer using a shaft that is too flexible may experience a ball flight that is too high, a ball that spins too much, or a shot pattern that has inconsistent dispersion.
Flex. Generally speaking, a driver shaft that's too stiff will cause shots to launch too low, with too little spin and low peak heights. A shaft that's too weak, on the other hand, may cause shots to spin too much, fly too high, and widen dispersion patterns.
Stop chunking wedge shots: The main points
Two of the main problems are that you are attacking the ball too steep, and you are moving your weight backwards through the swing. When you sway through the ball it will make strike really inconsistent and with wedges you always want to have a really stable base.
Who Should Play With Stiff Flex In Their Wedges And Why? Golfers with faster swings are best suited to stiff flex shafts. Any softer flex shafts may cause you to sky shots, and obtain greater levels of spin than you desire.
In short, yes. The amount of give your wedge possesses will determine how much whip the shaft of your club provides when you swing. It can affect the trajectory, power, and how comfortable you are when you play. Everyone has a different playing style, and flex can contribute significantly to this.
Especially if you're hitting those pitch and chip shots. A little bit more weight in the wedge will keep the club stable on those less-than-full-swing shots.”
The club shaft at address needs to be in-line. One of the most common errors with the driver is to lean the club shaft too far forward. This club shaft alignment promotes a steep attack angle, robbing you of power and accuracy.
In most cases, tip trimming a shaft makes it meaningfully stiffer. It also increases torsional stiffness, known as “torque,” which is a shaft's resistance to twisting. On the other end of the shaft is the handle, which is also generally trimmed some amount when building a golf club.
The good kind of spin -- backspin -- comes from hitting the ball cleanly, then making a divot after impact. The biggest mistake is trying to pinch down on the ball and ripping out a big divot, often hitting the ground before the ball. You'll dig up some turf, but you won't create much backspin.
How do I stop my wedges from spinning?
Clean your grooves and keep the face dry
The same goes for water. Any water between the face of the wedge and the golf ball can reduce friction, and therefore spin. So, make sure to dry any moisture off with a dry towel before hitting your wedge shot.
Pros can typically hit a well-placed 60-degree wedge shot between 100 and 125 yards, but that will generally be between 30 and 80 yards for amateurs. It's important to remember that this isn't a driver, and you shouldn't be looking to use the 60 degrees to gain maximum distance.
Stance Too Wide
Keeping your stance too wide is not just a problem for ball flight, but it is a significant reason that golfers struggle with wedge shots as a whole. Regardless of your skill level, it is much easier to control a golf ball when your stance is more narrow.
Ben Hogan Equalizer II: 10,520rpm
Our data has it down as not only our test pro's highest spinning wedge of 2022, but also our leading model for carry distance consistency, which of course will help with accurate scoring on the golf course.
2) “More loft means more spin.”
Again, this is true only to a point. For most people, the club that spins the most will be their pitching wedge or gap wedge. With a 56 or 60 degree wedge, it is very hard (maybe impossible) to get the spin loft down to 45°.