Something for the Weekend: Get your wedge lie right

Speaking with a PGA professional recently, he revealed how one of his students asked why he continually hit the ball off the toe of his wedges while able to flush them off his other irons.

Setting up to the ball, he said, it was easy to see why. At address the lie of the sole of his 54-degree wedge was too flat, causing the toe to dig into the ground at impact. So although his shots stayed close to on-line they tended to be hit low with a tendency to veer to the right.

Conversely, if the wedge was set up too upright the heel would dig in and the shot would tend to pull left.

The reason he didn’t have the problem with his other irons was that the wedge was bought off the shelf while they were custom-fitted – hence the reason a fitting with a wedge, using a ‘lie board’ and tape to determine where the club bottoms out, is recommended.

While lie angle was the culprit for miss-hits on this occasion, you can’t always attribute these kinds of wear marks to how a club sits on the ground. It could be posture or your grip.

Bad posture means you could be standing too close to or too far from the ball. Let your hands hang under your shoulders in a neutral position to get the correct address position.

If you’re holding the club correctly you will be holding it in your fingers. And if the grips are too big or too small, you’ll be more inclined to grip it in the palm and the glove will show signs of wear. 

Regardless of whether everything else in your swing is neutral, gripping it more in the palm will set an incorrect angle and produce shots hit off the toe.

You don’t have to buy a new wedge every time you deliver a series of miss-hits but it’s worth at least getting your lie, posture and grip sorted with a PGA pro.

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