In the third episode of our fitting series with Callaway, business and equipment analyst Rick Young dives into the wedge fitting process at Ontario Golf Academy at Whistle Bear Golf Club, showing how the right setup can fine-tune your short game.
We’ve taken you through a driver fitting. We’ve taken you through an iron fitting. Now, wedges are not something that people will get fit for, but you need to. And wedges have to do so many different things for us on the golf course. They’re such a big part of what we have when it comes to short game. These guys are going to take me through a fitting for Callaway’s new Opus wedges. [Music] We’re here at the putting green now. We’re going to take a look at a wedge fitting. Being outside hitting balls off turf and off grass in conditions that you are playing normally and working with bounce options um is the best way to do this process. And we’ve got Callaway this year that have just just very recently just brought out a brand new uh a new wedge line for 2025. The Opus lineup phenomenal wedge, very spinny. um just creates great action for for holding uh greens. They’ve got four different grinds. You know, you’ve got the C grind, T grind, S grind, and the W. It’s not just um you know, I play firm conditions, so I need the low bounce. You got to hit it. You got to try it. Here, I’ve presented you with the uh 8 ounce C grind in a 58. So, here I’d like you to try that 58. See how it reacts uh with the turf and um you know, how you like it. Okay. All right. Let’s do it. [Music] I’m hitting these things out of rough right now, but the next, you know, the next phase of this is, you know, we might do something off of harder, you know, a harder surface, fairway, sand. What I like to do sometimes is challenge people on a shot that really scares them. So, for example, like with you, if we want to set one down just a little bit, I really want you to open this face up and kind of feel like you take a bigger swing just to allow that ball to get more airborne naturally and allowing the club to do that work. See how hard those grooves grab? E. Wow. You know, this is less data driven, you know, than when we did the iron fitting. This is where the fitter and the consumer really need to be in sync. They really need to be talking back and forth to get the right set of wedges in the bag. You’re right. It’s less about data and how far can I hit a lob wedge and stuff like that. It’s how can I utilize this tool appropriately around a green to effectively score better. That’s why yeah going through this process outdoors in the rough off fairways is kind of the way to do a wedge fitting. It’s too important uh from you know 150 yards and and under to not look at this in an outdoor setting. Oh yes. Yeah, that’s the one there. Didn’t use my wrist at all on that last one. Well, and see how easy that just pops in the air, right? Not going to tell you the bounce, but what I really want to get from you is how this feels through the turf. Okay. Probably going to try you in two or three different bounce options and kind of rely a little bit more on your feedback along the way here. Okay. I like it. Even though I’m hitting those high, I feel like I’m in control of those. I think those are really good. You know, those are launching uh around 30° launch angle here. Certainly, they look very controllable. Let’s try another option here. What I did as a fitter, I like to go from basically one end of the spectrum to the other. I mean, I put a very low bounce wedge in your hand and then I put a very high bounce wedge and that kind of allows me to kind of lead into a certain direction here. Right. Right. So, I put you here first, went there, and it’s like, ah, he’s leaning this way a little bit. So, I’m going to bring something with a little bit more bounce in this wedge compared to the fir first one. Okay. What are your bunker conditions like? Pretty firm. Firm. They’re actually firm bunkers. In fact, the whole golf course that I play tends to be a little bit more on the firm side. Right. Okay. Okay. Which is sort of the road we’re leading you down. We’re kind of putting you into stuff that’s a little bit more on the low mid low bounce options. And without really telling you, you’re kind of you’re feeling it yourself, right? And it’s just something that’s kind of attracted, you know, to the way you swing the club. Well, Ben, I I put in a pretty good body of work there, I think, with these new Opus wedges. Why Why this one in your eyes as the fitter? Why did this one work so well for me? Everything that we did today, you kind of gravitated towards a lower bounce option. Uh just seemed to cut through the turf better. And you, as a golfer, being the golfer you are, responded well and knew almost instantly when, oh, hey, you know what? This didn’t feel quite the same. You know, try to trick you a little bit here and there, put you in higher balance options. You you were able to respond right away. let us know um kind of what you were leaning towards, right? And uh you know, I’m excited to see what what your future holds with them.
