Few shots in golf are cooler than the high spinning wedge shot. In fact, one of the most common questions we get from our athletes is: “how do I get backspin on the ball?”.The recipe for a high spinning wedge shot has a combination of ingredients that include both equipment and technique. Using a premium ball designed to be receptive to spin is the first step, the next step is having a high lofted club with clean, fresh grooves. The purpose of grooves is to create a channel for grass (made up of mostly water) to squeeze into when the club strikes the ball.
You can think of grooves on a club face the same way you would think of deep tread on new tires. Tire tread creates a channel for the water to squeeze into, resulting in more rubber meeting the road. Your grooves on your wedge are designed to do the exact same thing. This is why so much of the research and development that club manufacturers focus on with wedges, is friction. It’s no coincidence that many PGA Tour players use new wedges every tournament. The greens they are playing are some of the firmest and fastest greens on the planet, putting a premium on their ability to spin the golf ball. The role technique plays is being able to deliver the club into the ball with clean, ball first contact. From about 50 yards out, the best wedge players in the world launch the ball just under 30 degrees and generate about 9k-10k rpms of backspin. If you have access to a launch monitor you can use those parameters as a reference for your own 50 yard pitch shots to see how you stack up. Since the courses you are playing on are not in the same condition as the PGA Tour, you may not need those exact numbers however they will provide a nice reference point to see how you stack up.
The lead factors for creating those parameters are fundamental movement of the pelvis and torsor from the ground up. Which is why constantly improving fundamental movement will only improve your ability to control your golf ball.
