The Grind(ing) Never Stops With Vokey

Bob Vokey delivers another grind option for the SM10 wedge

By Tony Dear

This one is for the intense gearhead who knows his/her equipment – exactly how it looks and feels – like the back of their hand (assuming they know the back of their hand really, really well). Long, long ago before the golf equipment world had woken up, players had rather limited choices for their gear. If they were good, they played blades and used a balata ball. The irons felt awesome but only if you hit the ball squarely and the balls were soft and spun like a wind vane in a tropical storm, which is to say almost uncontrollably fast – so fast the ball would balloon if you lost control of it and often suck back rapidly on the green, assuming you hadn’t caught it a bit thin in which case you’d discover a wide leading edge-sized gash on the ball rendering it less than useless. Replacing balata balls got quite expensive.

If you weren’t great at the game, you played irons with huge cavity backs and rock-hard, surlyn-covered balls that might have given you a distance advantage but had all the feel of a marble or bowling ball.

As for wedges, there was pretty much one grind available – the OSFA, or One Size Fits All, Grind.

Now, of course, there are multiple wedge grinds available, meaning there is a club for every occasion (we’ll leave the argument over taking skill out of the game by introducing ever-better equipment for another time).

Vokey Wedges now offers over half a dozen different grinds in its SM10 model which it launched earlier this year and which continues the trend in lowering the ballflight but increasing greenside spin. Last week, another grind was added to the line-up dialing in a golfer’s ability to hit any shot from any lie on any type of ground even further.

Vokey calls the new A+ Grind a mid-bounce grind with a wide, contoured sole which produces a smooth, fast feel through the turf. Not surprisingly given its name, the A+ Grind is closely related to the A Grind which Vokey Tour Rep, Aaron Dill, developed alongside 2006 U.S. Open champion Geoff Ogilvy who wanted something that moved through the turf faster than his L Grind.

The A+ is for players who prefer a slightly wider sole and a little less bounce because of how they deliver the wedge to the ball and the type of ground they typically play on – i.e. firm. Dill took Tour Players’ M Grind – the most popular on Tour – wedges and removed the ribbon (raised ridge found on the sole) from the center of the sole. That lowered the bounce by four degrees, preventing it from bouncing off tight lies and allowing it to move faster through the turf. And, because of the lower bounce, the leading edge sits closer to the ground at address. That, says Dill, increases the club’s versatility slightly.

Davis Riley recently used his Vokey WedgeWorks 60˚ A+ lob wedge when claiming his first PGA Tour title – at the Charles Schwab Challenge in Texas. The A+ Grind is also in the bags of Adam Scott and Jason Day.

SM10 wedges A+ Grind  – $225/club
Lofts – 58˚, 60˚
Shaft – True Temper Dynamic Gold S200
Available in Raw Finish, Right-hand only
vokey.com

Colorado AvidGolfer Magazine is the state’s leading resource for golf and the lifestyle that surrounds it, publishing eight issues annually and proudly delivering daily content via coloradoavidgolfer.com.

Follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram