In my job, it’s easy to get disconnected from how the average golfer is choosing to spend their money. We hope our team does a good job educating golfers to make the right purchase, but I don’t often get to see what the results really are. As we near the end of the year, I’ve started diving into some consumer habits with help from my friends over at Fairway Jockey, and while some results have really surprised me, a ton haven’t.
One that hasn’t surprised me (or should surprise anybody else) is that Vokey wedges took the top spot at Fairway Jockey. I think there are three big reasons why.
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The stock Vokey SM11 family has 27 combinations of loft, bounce and grind, and that’s before you add their WedgeWorks program, which brings in special tour-popular designs and limited-edition offerings. It also doesn’t include the fact that they come in a few finishes.
With 27 different options, there’s something for every golfer, regardless of skill or technique.
Matching a wedge sole to your performance goals is crucial for any player looking to score better around the greens and feel confident getting up and down after a squirrely approach shot.
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They also have options outside of their standard family. There are a couple of different finishes to choose from. There are options with Vokey’s Flightlines, which help you create shots around the green, and of course, there’s the Vokey Wedgeworks program.
The Wedgeworks program alone can make enough of a difference for some golfers to choose Vokey, since that’s where tour-inspired grinds that haven’t officially made it into the family live. The extremely popular K*, Vokey’s personal favorite 62ºM, and the V-Grind are among the options in the Vokey Wedgeworks program, which also lets players add custom grinds to their Vokey, plus personalized stamping and paint fill.
The Vokey SM11 tech story mainly revolves around the idea of consistent placement of center of gravity (CoG). Within a loft, regardless of what grind and bounce option you select, the CoG remains the same. This ensures that, no matter which wedge finds the perfect strike for you, you get ideal launch conditions.
In the past, with different CoG placements across different bounce and grind options, there were some opportunities to have proper turf interaction but not ideal launch conditions. The SM11 family fixes that, meaning every golfer who finds the right bounce and grind for their game gets proper launch conditions. That nice saucy tour-inspired flight is usually somewhere around 28º for a lob wedge.
That might sound like a cop-out, but it’s true. There’s a mystique around Vokey wedges. They’ve led the way on the PGA Tour for many years; they seem to hit the top of the best-seller lists every year, and they have no desire to stop putting the pedal to the metal.
One of the most impressive things about Vokey is the team behind it. Not just Bob or Aaron Dill and Shane out on Tour, but everyone that’s working behind the scenes to make those wedges better every release. They also listen to customers closely, which led to the Wedgeworks program and eventually into the retail family as well.
Titleist as a company has never been shy about continuing to innovate. With a two-year cycle across all categories, the company has time to work out the next evolution of each category. There’s often a general belief that there’s not much Titleist can do to improve the Vokeys. But they continue to prove that there’s always room to grow, there’s always room to improve, and there’s always going to be a new consumer problem to solve.
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