Bounce Belongs to Your Turf, Not Your Handicap
The full argument behind the section above, with the reasoning laid out properly.
Read the note ›
Bay Sessions / Wedges
The Deepest Bench in the Building
This is the session we are known for, and the one where local knowledge matters most. A wedge spec that works beautifully on firm links turf is close to unplayable in an August round in Duval County.
Bounce
Bounce Is Chosen by Turf and Delivery, Never by Handicap
The most persistent myth in the short game is that better players use less bounce. What better players actually use is bounce matched to the ground they play and the angle they deliver the club at — and a great many of them play far more bounce than the internet believes.
What matters is effective bounce: the angle the sole presents at your delivered shaft lean and lie, not the number stamped on the head. A player who leans the shaft hard forward turns a twelve-degree wedge into something closer to six. Fit the stamped number and you have fitted a club that does not exist.
Around here the default advice runs higher than most people expect. Summer bermuda is soft and grabby by mid-afternoon, and the older courses near the river hold coarse, shell-heavy sand that punishes a sole ground for fluffy silica.
Effective vs Stamped
Stamped12° on the hosel
Shaft lean−5° delivered
Face open+3° effective
EffectiveRoughly 10°
Two players with identical wedges routinely present four or five degrees of difference to the turf. This is why stamped numbers cannot be compared between golfers.
Grind
Where Material Has Been Removed, and Why
Grind is simply which parts of the sole have been ground away. Heel relief lets an open face sit lower without the leading edge rising. Toe relief helps the club rotate through soft turf. Trailing edge relief stops a wide sole bouncing off firm ground into a thin strike.
We keep sample soles you can put on the turf board and feel the difference on, rather than asking you to interpret a letter code from a catalogue. Where nothing off the shelf is right, Theo grinds relief by hand in small passes with test swings between them.
Local Turf States
Winter bermudaTight, firm, low grab
Summer bermudaSoft, grabby, wet by 4pm
River sandCoarse, shell-heavy
Newer coursesSoft imported silica
We fit for the range across a season, not the average. A wedge that only works in February is not fitted.
Also Included
Two Things Every Wedge Session Covers
Groove condition on what you already own
Wedge grooves do not fail suddenly, they erode — and the edge geometry goes long before the groove looks shallow. We measure edge radius on your current wedges and tell you which ones are genuinely finished and which have another season in them. It is common for the wedge a player assumed was fine to be the dead one, because the club used least often gets cleaned least often.
Gapping across the whole scoring range
Ordering a wedge without checking gapping is how players end up with two clubs that go the same distance and a forty-yard hole below the pitching wedge. We map carry distances across the scoring set before any component decision, and reasonably often the recommendation is to change a loft rather than buy a club.
Bring them dirty. Genuinely. Groove condition and grip wear are both evidence, and
a thorough clean the night before erases half of what we would otherwise learn in the first ten
minutes.
Read Alongside
Journal Entries on Wedge Work
Sole Grind: What Gets Removed and Why
Heel, toe and trailing edge relief explained without the catalogue letter codes.
Read the note ›How Many Rounds Before Grooves Give Up
What erodes first, in what order, and when replacement genuinely becomes worthwhile.
Read the note ›Two Hours in the Wedge Bay
Longer than a single-club session because the turf board work cannot be hurried. Renata runs these.