Discount Wedges

I am a high-handicapper and need new wedges. Does anyone have experience or opinions about the Lazrus wedges or the Stix wedges? Seems like the price is about 1/3 of standard brand names?
Thanks in advance.
David

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Id go Costco wedges if you just want cheap.

Or custom build a set on golfworks.com

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The Costco ones have great reviews and I was able to find all 3 for $120, only one of the wedges had been used.

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No opinion on those brands, but I feel the concerns on price. For s$Ă·- and giggles, I priced a SM-9 Vokey lob wedge. No real crazy options, and it was still $220.

If the Costco ones could work, that’s a heck of a bargain.

I’d echo the Costco set.
The heads of most the OEM were all forged/ cast, in China, most likely the shafts were manufactured in China also so were the grips. No big difference besides the design and the price point.
Costco has nice set of wedges. You may have to have the lie angle fit to you, but that’s $4-$6 per club at most of the golf fitting store. Grinding a custom sole will cost more ( $15-$20 ? )

You’ll probably use the SW, GW more than the high lofted one, but they come in a set. At around $120 for 3, it’s less than the average built if you go the component route.

Wedge is like putter, if the lie angle and the bounce fit your game and it looks good at address, it’ll work well.

Major concern is the lie angle and the degree of bounce for the type of shot you’ll need.

Personally, I dislike grinding the sole for the needed bounce, it could change the feel with lightening the head weight. Changing the lie angle a few degrees will not effect the design much. Great excuses for getting additional wedges at different loft and bounce for different playing condition. I have at least 4 sets of wedges throughout the years plus a few odd ones , Rotating them depending on the golf course I’ll be playing that particular day.
For your purpose, the Costco set of wedge seems to be the winner.

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I’m not familiar with the wedges you referenced. I’ll echo that Costco or Golfworks would get you high quality wedges for much less than most everything else.

I bought my entire matched Wedge Set of 46, 50, 54 and 60 for under $100. They were used but in really good shape. I had to grind the 46 and 50 a bit to get the lie to my personal spec. I regripped all 4 myself for $32. You might be surprised what you can find on EBay. I’d do that myself if I was to purchase quality at a very reasonable price before I bought an off the rack set at Costco

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Resale wedge is fine, just be careful (1) the grooves might be wearing out and near it’s useful life. (2) it’s important that the previous owner/user did not improperly sharpen the grooves. After a few times of sharpening, the grooves will be too wide to be conforming.
Golfers involved in local tournament play will change their wedge every few years for that reason. Forged heads will need attention sooner than the cast heads.
It’s some time ago, a local young lady got called out for using non-conforming clubs after winning a regional tournament. She later ventured onto the professional circuit.

I can’t speak for their wedges, but I have a Lazrus hybrid and it is a good value. Costco apparently has decent wedges for the price. But I would personally recommend looking at the Maltby wedges from The Golfworks. You can get custom wedges for a fraction of what the big boys sell for.

One thing you may want to also consider is how you are going to use the wedge(s). If you are a high handicapper and plan to use the wedges for full swings on approaches (as well as around the greens), you may want to consider a cavity back…rather than the much more common blade style wedge.

I’m an 11 handicapper and find the Cleveland cbx2 (cavity back wedges) much easier and more forgiving to hit on full swings…with no noticeable difference around the greens on pitches and chips.

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LOL… Right I might only get 3 or 4 ft of spin instead of 10ft… I played a round with Sam Snead many years ago… here’s a gem I learned from him. If you look at greens they usually have a slope from Back to Front. Observe your target, but most of the time, you pretty much want to “limit” spin… Here’s his way, find some deepish rough and take a few practice swings… the grass will clog up your grooves, limiting too much back-spin… I’m a decent golfer, to be honest, I’m less interested in very spinny wedges, as long as I can get them to bite as I need them…if that makes sense… a beginner… even less so. My though is to always get a quality club in their hands though compared to an off the rack brand. A Used decent Vokey Wedge is at $50 is always going be better than $50 on an off brand! Just my 2 cents!

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I started this game by using the Top Flite rock for almost a decade before they finally got rid of the balata cover. Can’t afford to use a whole sleeve of Titleist balata for 18. One of the guy will toss his Titleist to me after a few holes simply because it’s “out of round” with those rubber band wind up core. I thought it was just fine with my game back then. Almost like new and really have to put the golf ball in a perfect ring of sphere to check for the out of round claim.
So, I like to have my wedge shot “release” a little after checking on the first couple of bounces on the green. Back spin ? only on the wet surface and if I hit it really hard. 3-5 feet of back spin is pretty normal for golfing around the NW.

LOL…so do you hit it on the second or third groove? I’m good…I ain’t that good! :grin:

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Yes, believe it or not, from the shaving of the ball covers, it appears to be on the 2-3 grooves from the bottom. When my Callaway X-14 PS was newer, I shave off the ball covers all the time even with the mid irons once in awhile. Urethan covered golf balls. That’s after I graduated to use a better golf ball. Didn’t lose many of the golf balls, most of them were retired to practice sack after 18-36 holes.
The grooves on those X-14 PS are not brand new sharp, and the shaving has become minimum.
Has something to do with getting another 20 years, lost a bit of swing speed.

Too deep for me. Must be nice to be a + hdcp player. Got myself down to a 2 in my late 20s. I’m not that good as a single digit player. If my grooves are a little worn, I just don’t notice that much. My wedge set is 12 years old. I’m pretty good with them using my full swing, I still stink from 60yds in and that is a 38 year old issue that no club can fix. Only practice and confidence. As long as my lofts and lie is agreeable to me I could swing a 70 year old club and get decent results I know I’ve used them

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Who ? Not I. Couldn’t commit to the game on the level which could not support my family playing it and I hate the boring work as a club house professionals. I cut short of my golf game after I have a family, have to devote my time and effort to supporting family instead of chasing the dream of lowering the index on data. Lots of guys are not totally honest on posting their scores anyway, some move it lower or higher for different reasons.
Nothing wrong with wedge play which won’t stop on a dime or spinning back 10’. Trick is know and manage the expectation. I know for a fact some of the professional do not like a whole bunch of spin ( they couldn’t help it if they use a full swing ). Reason being is, tough to control the outcome if over spin the approach shot. Most of them like a controlled hop and stop no more than a few feet from landing spot.
I remembered one of the golf course we played, a Pete Dye designed ( or was his niece so we’ve heard ) golf course, there was no way to stop an approach on the green, when it first opened up to the public.
We played it the first year when it opened. Nice design, except for the greens. 80% are elevated and 60% required more than a wedge to reach the green ( which means mid-long irons and sometimes a fairway wood from the fairway ). The greens were packed down and rolled each day.
Out of the two groups that day, no one could manage to stop the approach shot no matter what we did, no matter if we tried to spin it with a wedge or switched to Pro V1 from a harder compression ball like Bridge Stone Tour.
Finally, by the 5th hole or so ( we played twice that day to make up for the travel needed to get there ); we’d figured out to just make it to the front edge of the green and let it release to the middle or the back of the green. Had we gone for the flag or the middle of the green, we’d found the golf ball off the green in the back. Not very friendly to amateur golfers ( and we had some low index holders in the group ). The golf course got the review and they smooth out some of the rolling in the fairways and redone the greens to make it more Muni like. Trimmed some of the trees and shorten the rough, so they could attract more golfers and speed up the playing pace with golfers making less mistakes.
IMHO, if you know how the golf shots will react, it’s easy to mange it.
A lot of the guys asked me how to back up a short iron shot on the green. There is no secret if one has enough swing speed to produce the proper spin. Pros don’t have special grooves in their wedge as there are regulations for conforming equipment governed by the U.S.G.A. The pros could back up a wedge shot on a slippery green is because they have faster swing speed to produce more spin.
We have a guy in our group who will sharpen the grooves on his wedge to a point of non-conforming, just by eyeballing it, the grooves were too wide and too deep. We let it go because who’d fuse over a $5 Nassau and dollar skin ? He seldom win anything anyway.

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