How To Break 100 Lesson 5: Wedges Golflink.com

Your wedges are also known as your “scoring clubs” which should tell you everything you need to know about how important they are to your success on the golf course. To shoot good scores, you must have a good wedge game.

Fortunately, Brent Franklin teaches an incredibly simple and effective technique that will not only help you hit great wedge shots, but do so from a variety of distances.

Your Wedge Game & Benchmarks

Even though you use your wedges for a variety of shots from inside 125 yards, we’re going to evaluate this portion of your game on how you perform from 50 to 100 yards. These are the wedge shots that don’t fall into the chipping and pitching categories, and aren’t quite in the full-swing realm either.

For shots between 50 and 100 yards from the hole, here are your Breaking 100 wedge game benchmarks. As always, these target numbers are typical of players who shoot scores in the mid-90s, so by hitting these benchmarks, you can proceed with confidence that your wedge game has you poised to shoot scores in the 90s.

Stat	Target
Proximity: 50-74 yards	50 feet
Proximity: 75-99 yards	55 feet
Greens: 50-74 yards	55%
Greens: 75-99 yards	45%

PREVIOUS LESSON: How To Break 100 Lesson 4: Pitching

How To Hit Your Wedges

These wedge shots are similar to pitch and chip shots in that controlling your distances is the most important element. To do this, we can actually apply the same philosophy that you mastered in the previous lesson on pitching.

Brent Franklin demonstrates how to apply this technique to 50-100 yard wedge shots.

First and foremost, practice this lesson in an environment where you can get reliable feedback on your distances. This could mean bringing a laser rangefinder to the driving range, practicing on an empty hole on the course from distances you’re familiar with or have measured, or practicing at a golf facility equipped with a launch monitor.

Start hitting shots with your most lofted wedge and a repeatable-length takeaway. For example, finish your takeaway when your lead arm is parallel to the ground, or pointing to 9-o’clock on an imaginary clock.
Hit enough shots with the same wedge and the same length takeaway to identify a consistent carry yardage, measure that yardage, and write it down.
Next, repeat this process with your most lofted wedge, but extend your takeaway to about 10:30 on that imaginary clock. This is your full-length wedge swing, there’s no reason to have a takeaway longer than that with a wedge.
Once you’ve written down your 9-o’clock and 10:30 distances with your most lofted wedge, move on down your wedge set and do the same thing.

Whether you have two, three, or four wedges in your bag, you’ll add repeatable yardages to your wedge-game arsenal. Once you have all your yardages charted out, check to make sure you don’t have any gaps larger than 15 yards between two yardages. Since your target proximity (accuracy) is between 50 and 55 feet (about 16-18 yards), it’s too soon to fret over yardage gaps smaller than that.

RELATED: Golf Wedges Explained

If you identify gaps of larger than 15 yards on these shots between 50 and 100 yards, you have a couple options. First, you can practice adding a little bit to a 9-o'clock swing or taking a little off a 10:30 swing to add the desired distance. Alternatively, if your wedge set only consists of two wedges, you may consider adding another wedge to bridge that gap.

Dominate With Your Scoring Clubs

As we recommend with every lesson, practice this wedge lesson until you can hit the prescribed benchmarks. After you’ve moved on to the next lessons in this course, be sure to check back on your wedge game and these benchmarks periodically to make sure your wedge game stays sharp. Keeping your wedge game in good enough shape to break 100 is a significant step to shooting your target scores.

NEXT LESSON: How To Break 100 Lesson 6: Full Swing