The Wedge Report: What Wedges Do LPGA Players Use?

Regular golfers often look to professional players for inspiration when selecting clubs.

And as part of our ongoing series of articles looking at what clubs LPGA Tour pros use on this occasion we wanted to focus on the wedges the top 100 players use to uncover the trends, brands and models they trust most.

Titleist wedges lead the way among the top 100 LPGA players making up 22% of all the wedges used. Titleist Vokey Design SM9 and SM10 models are the most popular individual wedges making up 14% of all wedges played by this group. PING and Callaway are also popular, each accounting for 18% of the wedges used, with Cleveland/Srixon wedges the next most common with 7%.

With this in-depth look at what wedges LPGA players use however, Golfing Focus didn’t just want to stop there.

So let’s now go further and explore all the wedge types, bounce and grind preferences, and the number of wedges LPGA players carry to deliver a complete look at the wedges used at the top of the women’s professional game.

A Closer Look At The Wedges Used by Top LPGA Players

When Golfing Focus looked at the wedges PGA pros use Titleist’s dominance was almost overwhelming.

But while we found Titleist wedges were again the most common on the LPGA Tour – accounting for 22% of the 326 wedges we analysed being used by the top 100 – our in-depth research found other brands of wedges to be much more popular among the top women pros compared to their male colleagues.

Admittedly club data is less comprehensive on the LPGA Tour – we were unable to find reliable wedge data on 16 of the top 100 players – but despite this PING and Callaway wedges are clearly much more commonly used on the LPGA Tour than on the PGA Tour.

And that translates to their leading wedge models such as PING’s S159 and Callaway’s Jaws Raw wedges being played by a lot of LPGA Tour players.

Titleist’s Vokey Design wedges however do still lead the pack among the top 100 LPGA Tour players and when we looked at specialty wedges only Vokey wedges made up 33% of the 241 we uncovered.

So while we did not see the same levels of Titleist dominance among the top women pros as the men it appears both sets of players do show a preference for Titleist wedges.

[Editor’s note – For this study, we classed a ‘specialty wedge’ as a wedge that isn’t sold as part of an iron set. Speciality wedge examples include Titleist’s Vokey, PING’s Glide, Callaway’s Jaws, & Cleveland’s RTX ranges.]

It was also interesting to note some of the top players in the women’s game not immediately moving to the latest model of their preferred brand of wedge.

One-time major champion and 6-time LPGA Tour winner Daneille Kang for example waited until this year to swap out her two older Vokey Design SM7 models in her 44º and 49º pitching and gap wedge prior to switching to the latest SM10 model.

Our analysis however found this to be more of an exception and when you look at the breakdown of the top 5 wedge models we discovered among the top 100 there is an obvious clear preference for the latest models.

1. Titleist Vokey Design SM9 – 36 wedges
2. Callaway Jaws Raw – 27 wedges
3. PING s159 – 23 wedges
4. Titleist Vokey Design SM10 – 21 wedges
5. TaylorMade Milled Grind 4 – 16 wedges

How Many Wedges Do LPGA Pros Typically Carry?

The number of wedges any golfer decides to carry is a key decision. And that is no different for the best women golfers on the LPGA Tour.

It was therefore a question Golfing Focus was determined to look into in depth when it came to our examination of what wedges LPGA players use.

And although we were only able to uncover accurate data on this topic for 70 out of the top 100 LPGA Tour pros the vast majority on Tour clearly opt to carry 4 rather than three wedges.

In total 84% of this group of 70 LPGA players use four wedges with only 16% using only three wedges, including Sei Young Kim and 2024 Solheim Cup star Lauren Coughlin.

I go through wedges so fast. In my garage, I have a wedge that’s completely smooth from being hit so much. I carry two wedges when I practice: the practice wedge and the gamer. If I played only one wedge, it would last six weeks.

lpga tour winner, Angel yin

What was also notable however was a select number of the four wedge players who chose to play only two specialty wedges alongside two wedges that matched their iron sets.

So called ‘approach’ or ‘utility’ wedges are almost non-existent sights when it comes to the gap wedges used on the PGA Tour but with leading lights including major champions Lilia Vu and Jennifer Kupcho opting to use Srixon’s ZX7 Mk II approach wedge and PING’s i230 utility wedge we found these gap wedge types to be more common on the women’s tour than the men’s.

When it comes to the number of wedges pros carry it is also of note how many have two versions of the same wedge in their bag due to their heavy usage.

Speaking to Golf Digest Danielle Kang for example spoke of how she carries two 58º wedges – one solely for practice and one for playing in competition – to help the grooves last longer.

And this is for the simple reasons of firstly how much these top players use their wedges and also how much they rely on the grooves to be as sharp as possible to enable them to be precise when targeting pins often tucked away on corners of the green.

According to Angel Yin if she only played one wedge “… it would only last six weeks!”

Bounce and Grind ‘Fine-Tuning’ Options on the LPGA Tour

One of the features of the advance of golf tech in recent times when it comes to wedges is the seemingly exponential rise in the available options.

And two key factors in these options are ‘grind’ and ‘bounce’.

While ‘bounce’ is how much lower the lowest point of the sole or trailing edge is than the leading edge, wedge ‘grind’ is the manipulation or removal of material from the sole of the club.

And both of these elements are designed to help improve contact with the turf or sand.

So what are the best pros on the LPGA Tour choosing when it comes to wedge bounce and grind options?

’10’ bounce is the most common among the top 100 LPGA pros in their pitching, gap and sand wedges while ‘8’ bounce is the most chosen in lob wedges.

‘F’ meanwhile is the most common grind in Titleist Vokey Design pitching, gap and sand wedges among this group with the most popular Titleist lob wedge grind being ‘M’.

For Callaway and PING wedges by comparison ‘S’ is the most used grind in pitching, gap and sand wedges but this changes to a ‘C’ grind in Callaway lob wedges while remaining an ‘S’ grind in PING lob wedges on Tour.

And that analysis itself highlights part of the issue in observing what can be learned from the top women pros’ wedge bounce and grind choices.

Not only do different brands use different categorizations for their grind options to make direct comparisons more difficult but our in-depth analysis of the wedge bounces and grinds used on the LPGA Tour found at least five different individual options of each being used by players across all the gap, sand and lob wedges.

Indeed we counted 8 different bounce and 10 different grind options among the lob wedges used by this select group including grind options that were unique to an individual player.

Danielle Kang, for example, has a ‘D’ grind lob wedge which stands for ‘Danielle’ because it is a grind made specifically for her.

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A post shared by Danielle Kang (@daniellekang)

Former Women’s PGA Champion Hannah Green also carries two different bounce versions – a low and a mid – of her 60º Cleveland RTX6 Zipcore Tour Rack lob wedge which she alternates between depending on the course conditions she is playing on any particular tournament week.

And there lies the key point when it comes to the bounce and grind options used by the top LPGA Tour players. They choose the combinations which will give them the most options out on the course taking account of their swing type and the conditions.

However many wedges they carry they want to ensure each serves a particular purpose.

And they achieve that by choosing a combination of bounces and grinds, together with lofts across their wedges, that allow them to hit the greatest variety of shots around the green as they need at any given tournament.

Before You Go …

If you’re curious about how these LPGA wedge choices compare to the PGA Tour dive into our comparable analysis of what wedges are used by top 100 PGA players!

Wedge Wizardry: What Wedges Do PGA Pros Use?

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