The PGA Tour's best players around the green – and their wedge selection

09/04/2024 16:19

Wedges are among the most versatile clubs in the bag for tour professionals and an essential part of gaining strokes around the green.

Strokes gained around the green is a key statistic well-tracked by the PGA Tour.

Here we look at the five best players statistically this season and what they use for precision play around the green.

Hideki Matsuyama

Wedges: Cleveland RTX 4 Forged Prototype (52-10, 56-8, 60-08) with True Temper Dynamic Gold S400 shafts.

PGA Tour leader in shots gained around the green, Hideki Matsuyama uses just three dedicated wedges, four if you include his pitching wedge at the end of his iron range.

All three of Matsuyama’s wedges are Cleveland RTX 4 Forged Prototypes and he deploys 52, 56 and 60-degree wedges.

Matsuyama chooses to go with True Temper Dynamic Gold S400 shafts for both his irons and wedges. These are considered the standard Tour weight stiff-flex shaft.

Roger Sloan

Wedges: Titleist Vokey Design SM10 (50-08F, 56-08M, 60-10S) with True Temper Dynamic Gold Tour Issue S400 shafts.

Roger Sloan has gone all in on the newest edition of the Titleist Vokey Design wedges, the SM10s.

All three of his wedges are from the SM10 family with Sloan deploying a 50 and 56-degree wedge alongside his trusty 60.

His former wedge selection featured a tribute to the Canadian’s favourite hockey team, the Calgary Flamesm painted onto the club head

Mackenzie Hughes

Wedges: Ping Glide 2.0 (52-SS, 56-WS, 60-SS) all with True Temper Dynamic Gold Tour Issue S400 shafts

Mackenzie Hughes lines up with three Pin Glide 2.0 wedges in his bag and uses the tour standard True Temper shaft.

His wedges are now commercially obsolete but he is a player reluctant to change his scoring clubs.

The Glide 2.0 wedges were released way back in 2017 and have since been replaced by the 3.0, 4.0, Glide Forged and Glide Forged Pro models showing the rate of development at Ping.

But Hughes appears to take good care of his weapons and is very particular about his wedge setup.

Scottie Scheffler

Wedges: Titleist Vokey Design SM8 (50-12F, 56-14F), Titleist Vokey Design WedgeWorks Proto (60-06K, 60.5-T) all with True Temper Dynamic Gold Tour Issue S400.

Scheffler has been happy to keep his SM8 wedges in his 50 and 56-degree clubs, but with the busy 60 or in his case 60.5, he recently added a new club to his bag.

The Titleist Vokey Design WedgeWorks Proto Wedge has been gaining traction with tour professionals mostly as a good 60-degree option for better players.

Scheffler has done well to gain strokes around the green keeping him in contention for titles when his putting has been a little bit iffy.

S.H. Kim

Wedges: Titleist Vokey Design SM10 (52-08F, 56-10S) and Titleist Vokey Design SM9 (60-T) with True Temper Dynamic Gold Tour Issue S400 shafts.

S.H. Kim has the shot versatility, distance control and spin to make use of his wedge array.

The SM9s and SM10s are among the most popular wedge choices on the PGA Tour. More than 25 players at the highest level have added the new SM10s to their bag and yet more use the older iterations.

Kim has been precise around the green but hasn’t hit any significant high notes as a player on the PGA Tour this season.

Aaron Baddeley

Wedges: Callaway Jaws Raw (56-12X, 60-10S) with True Temper Dynamic Gold Tour Issue S400 shafts.

Callaway staffer Aaron Baddeley only has two wedges in his bag, favouring the Jaws Raws in 56 and 60-degree lofts.

He gets a lot of versatility out of his Badds-stamped wedges and has even shown that he can putt with them.

His 56-degree wedge is in Callaway’s high bounce, high-relief X-Grind while he has gone for the middle-of-the-road S-Grind on his 60-degree.

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