There are many brands we associate with particular products. Ferrari with cars, Rolex and watches, McDonalds and fast food, you get the picture. We have something similar in golf: Mizuno...
There are many brands we associate with particular products. Ferrari with cars, Rolex and watches, McDonalds and fast food, you get the picture.
We have something similar in golf: Mizuno with irons, Scotty Cameron with putters, and Vokey with golf wedges.
Vokey wedges are part of the Titleist family, who also has Scotty Cameron under their umbrella, offering a formidable lineup of some of the best-performing golf clubs in the game.
In a recent poll of the top 100 players on the PGA Tour, Vokey golf wedges dominated, with 46% of those top 100 players having at least one Vokey wedge in their bag. The DP World Tour shows similar stats, with 50% of the field in any given week having one or more Vokey wedges in their bags.
At the start of 2024, Titleist Vokey released the much-anticipated SM10 golf wedges, initially for tour use but now available for all golfers. To uncover why Vokey is the dominant wedge manufacturer on tour, the innovations within the new SM10 wedges, and how they can benefit your game, we’ll look at the following:
Before diving into the new Vokey SM10 range, it’s worthwhile taking a brief moment to reflect on why Vokey wedges have the reputation they do for being arguably the best wedges available and trusted by so many professionals in the game.
The story started when Bob Vokey joined Titleist in the late 1980s, where he was initially tasked with working on Titleist’s driver range. Titleist had a bigger task for Vokey to undertake. Titleist wanted to enter the high-performance wedge market, and Bob Vokey was the man to deliver.
Vokey’s work was centred around gaining as much feedback from tour players as possible on what they needed in their golf wedges. This gave him valuable insight into concepts like grinds, bounce angles, lofts, and desired ball flights.
All this feedback helped towards the first wedge bearing the Vokey name appearing in 1997. Since then, Vokey has continued to work with the game’s elite, creating new designs and ranges enjoyed by the best players in the world and amateurs who are serious about the importance of having the right golf wedges in their bags.
Vokey wedges doesn’t have the market all to themselves, and competition for Vokey’s crown is coming thick and fast from the likes of Callaway, Cleveland, Mizuno, PXG, and TaylorMade.
With the SM9s having a highly successful run since their launch in 2022, let’s take a closer look at how the SM10s will keep the Vokey dynasty going forward.
There are 25 unique loft, grind, and bounce combinations in the SM10 range, and three different finishes are available to further golfers’ choices.
Starting with grinds, there are six different options ranging from the T grind, which offers the lowest bounce for precision ball striking, to the K grind, which offers the widest sole, providing the most forgiveness on less-than-perfect strikes.
Moving on to bounce ratings, the lowest bounce is 4 degrees and runs through to a high of 14 degrees. Lofting ranges from 46 degrees up to 60 degrees. You can choose from one of three finishes available. The classic tour chrome is the most popular, but if you want something more striking in the bag, you can opt for the jet-black finish or the new nickel finish.
Whatever finish you choose, each head is cast from soft 8620 carbon steel, meaning that unlike some of its competitors, Vokey wedges are not forged steel.
We’ll examine why offering a variety of grind, bounce, and loft options is vital to a better wedge game shortly, but let’s now look at some of the technological features within the new Vokey SM10 range.
You might think that there isn’t much that goes into the design of a golf wedge, but you would be wrong. A lot of detail goes into the design of the SM10s, with clever, subtle touches that help optimise each golf wedge’s performance.
There are three key design features within the SM10 range, which are:
Controlling trajectory in your wedges helps ensure consistency in spin and distance control. To achieve this, Titleist Vokey has featured a variable centre of gravity in its wedges since the SM7 range. What this means, in reality, is that the more loft on the golf wedge, the higher the centre of gravity in the face is, offering a controlled, lower trajectory.
With SM10, the centre of gravity has a slight heel bias, which Vokey engineers claim helps create a more stable head through impact and improves feel. Having a marginal heel bias also helps with easier blending with Titleist’s T100 golf irons, which also feature a marginal heel-biased centre of gravity.
Vokey has worked on evolving the head profile to ensure that with the Vokey SM10 range, the differences between an iron head and a wedge head are reduced, which gives you a much easier time at address when you have either club in your hands.
The SM10 head and hosel are marginally smaller than those of the previous SM9 generation, which has helped Vokey reposition the centre of gravity throughout the range.
From an aesthetic standpoint, the leading edge on both the pitching and gap wedges is straight to improve turf interaction and help the transition from irons to wedges. The sand and lob wedges feature a more curved leading edge to help you open the clubface more effectively for lob shots or bunker play.
Groove design isn’t just about creating more spin and that beautiful moment where you feel like a tour pro when you see some action on your golf ball when you knock a wedge into the green.
Optimising grooves helps to control spin, which in turn leads to more consistent ball flights. With the SM10s, the lower lofted wedges feature narrower and deeper grooves. In contrast, the more lofted wedges have shallower but wider grooves.
Vokey has also engineered what it calls a micro-texture, which is like mini grooves between the main grooves, to help provide more spin and control. This is particularly useful on chip shots where maximum control is needed to get the ball close.
In the final stages of production, each wedge face receives a heat treatment that Vokey claims helps prolong the life and effectiveness of the grooves on each wedge.
We classify golf wedges as our scoring clubs, but it’s amazing the number of golfers who don’t have a good wedge setup in their golf bags and don’t have their wedges custom-fitted for their game.
Bob Vokey has even commented on this, noting that:
“Getting fit for each of your wedges and learning how to use them in different situations is one of the fastest ways to gain confidence around the green.”
If you are looking at new golf wedges for the season ahead, analyse your existing setup, your style of play, and the different types of courses you play.
When you play, if you are prone to taking deep divots, wedges with low bounce levels will not work well for you. The opposite is true if you barely bruise the grass when you hit the ball.
If you play courses that are more links-style in their nature, you may need wedges with lower bounce and grinds that will allow you to nip the ball easier from the tight turf. If the courses you play are more parkland in nature, having more bounce and grind will prevent the leading edge from sticking in the softer ground.
Having the correct bounce and grind on your wedges is vital for consistent, solid contact with the proper turf interaction.
One final aspect to assess in your wedge game is if you find you are compromised on certain distances where you don’t have a club to cover that distance. This will lead you to taking more club and try to swing it smoothly or opt for the shorter club and hit it harder.
Either option can compromise strike, spin and distance control.
All these aspects are considered when you come for a custom fitting, and this is why Titleist Vokey offers so many options within the SM10 golf wedge makeup.
You can book a custom-fitting session with us at Golf Tech UK to focus solely on wedges. With the versatility provided by the Vokey SM10 range, we know we can find the right golf wedge setup for your golf game.
We can create the correct distance gapping through loft selection and improve your ball striking and turf interaction by tailoring the correct grind and bounce for your swing.
While we have focused on the SM10 head options, your fitting session with us will also provide you with the correct shaft and lie angles for your SM10 wedges, giving you everything you need to create a more consistent wedge game.
The new SM10 golf wedges from Titleist Vokey continue the successful dynasty created by Bob Vokey, which will undoubtedly see the SM10s continue to dominate on the professional tours for years to come.
Vokey succeeds by creating versatility through the different grinds, bounces, and loft options available. This versatility comes from years of gaining feedback from the best players in the world and, in recent years, from recreational golfers.
We demand a lot from our wedges, from full shots into the green to delicate lob shots, and the best way we can achieve predictable, consistent results with our wedges is to be custom-fitted for them.
If you are serious about improving your golf wedge game, book yourself in for a custom-fitting session and try the Titleist Vokey SM10 wedges.
You can also check out the new Vokey SM10 range and all the customisable options via our website.
If you have any other questions about the Titleist Vokey SM10 range or custom-fitting, please do not hesitate to contact us.
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