The best golf wedges you can buy by Kyle Schurman on Apr 25, 2018, 12:30 PM The Insider Picks team writes about stuff we think you'll like. Business Insider has affiliate partnerships, so we get a share of the revenue from your purchase. 
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A wedge needs to be one of the most versatile clubs in your golf bag, as you will need to use it from the fairway, the fringe, the rough … and even the sand trap. The Titleist Vokey SM7 family of wedges will give you all the versatility you need at a high-performance level. For most people, the wedge in the golf bag is the equivalent of the placekicker in football. You usually don’t want to use one, because it often means you’ve made some sort of mistake on your approach shot. But when you’re forced to use it, the wedge (or placekicker) had better deliver for you. Fortunately, golf club designers have recognized the need for the wedge to be a consistent performer in your golf bag. In recent years, they’ve given wedges a host of excellent features that allow you to precisely control your shots around the green, giving you a better chance of cutting strokes from your score. Wedges also need to be able to work from a multitude of lies, giving you a high level of versatility in shot making, whether you’re on the fringe or in the fairway. Wedges also work great from the rough or from a sand trap, but none of us ever end up in those positions on the golf course, right? We've researched top-performing wedges to find the best ones you can buy for any scenario. The best wedge overall  Why you'll love it: The Titleist Vokey SM7 family of wedges have all of the latest design features and personalization options to help you shave strokes off your score. When you want the best control around the greens, a great wedge design is a must. And the Titleist Vokey SM7 family of wedges contains the best features and design that you’ll find in this type of golf club, ensuring you can find a wedge — or two or three — that will match your game. The SM7 gives you great feel on short approach shots. This is an important feature for any wedge, as you’ll be hitting this club with full swings, half swings, and everything in between. You need to be able to trust that you can make a variety of shots with your wedge, and the Titleist Vokey SM7 delivers on that promise. The design of the club head has changed a bit from previous Titleist wedges. The back of the club has varying shapes, based on the loft of the wedge, which is available between 46 and 62 degrees. This design affects the center of gravity of the club, ensuring a proper ball strike for the type of loft that’s in use. When using a wedge with a low loft angle, you’ll naturally strike the ball lower on the face. Along those same lines, ball strikes higher on the club face are common with higher lofts. The Titleist Vokey SM7’s design adjusts the center of gravity for each different club loft to account for this difference. The Titleist SM7 wedges can be personalized nicely to your swing path and shot making needs, according to Golfalot. It’s probably no surprise that the Titleist Vokey SM7 wedges are extremely popular on the PGA Tour. Golf Monthly says the Vokey SM7 family lives up to its billing as a premium set of wedges, combining beautiful craftsmanship with outstanding design features. But there are so many choices and decisions to make that it may overwhelm high handicap golfers. However, if you’re a low handicap golfer, the 23 different options with the SM7 wedges will serve you well, allowing to make almost any shot you could ever need, according to Golf Digest, which awards the SM7 perfect scores in performance, innovation, and feel. Worldwide Golf Shops reviewer Johnnie C says the Titleist SM7 wedge gives him a lot of confidence in all kinds of shots around the green, from a sand trap, or from the fairway. Pros: High-end build quality among wedges, delivers the precise control you want around the greens, center of gravity adjustments at different lofts are impressive, maintains similar great design look from SM6 Cons: Expensive price tag, almost too many choices for average golfers to understand
The best wedge for spin control  Why you'll love it: If you want to mimic your favorite pro golfer’s ability to put backspin on high wedge shots, the Callaway Mack Daddy 4 wedge has an innovative design with grooves on the club face. Golf gear companies are constantly testing new designs. Some of them are a bit crazy, and some change the game so much, they’re eventually banned on the professional level (like belly putters). Other design tweaks are so precise and minuscule that you might not see them at a glance, but you can certainly feel the difference in your ball striking ability. The Callaway Mack Daddy 4 family of wedges fits in this category, as Callaway’s designers have created a new design in the grooves of the wedges that is almost impossible to see, but that simply delivers results. The Mack Daddy 4 wedges have traditional square grooves across the club face that generate ball spin, but Callaway added micro grooves to the club, creating a series of inverted grooves in between the larger indented grooves. Additionally, Callaway makes this family of wedges in four different grinds, which should help players with different needs find the exact grind that matches their ball striking abilities. Golf Digest says Callaway’s design of the grooves in the Mack Daddy 4 delivers an amazingly high level of grip and spin on the ball. Because there are so many different lofts and bounce angles within this family of wedges, you’ll be able to more often find just the right wedge to allow for a full swing shot, according to Golfalot. These new Callaway wedges are becoming popular on professional golf tours, and National Club Golfer says it’s easy to understand why. They look great and have a cutting edge technology in the redesigned grooves. The Left Rough says Callaway made a smart decision to use indentations in the back of the club face to shift the center of gravity upward as the loft increases in these wedges, giving them a natural feel. You likely will receive additional distance with these wedges versus what you’re using now, according to Worldwide Golf Shops reviewer KK Bodie, because of the impressive ball striking ability you’ll have with these clubs. Pros: Impressive design of grooves on the club face for higher spin rate, great looking wedges that pro players use, multiple options for loft to allow for more full swing shots, should receive added distance Cons: Expensive wedges, high handicap players won’t need the extra spin the club face delivers
The best weight-balanced wedge  Why you'll love it: The Mizuno S18 family of wedges feature a well-balanced design that will help with mis-hit shots, so they’ll stay on track. If you’re someone who needs to receive feedback from your clubs when you make contact, you’ll appreciate the Mizuno S18 family of wedges. When you strike the ball even a little off-center, you’ll feel the difference. Fortunately, though, the weight balance on the club face in the S18 gives you some forgiveness for those off-center strikes. So you’ll feel it when you mis-hit the shot, but it won’t travel as far off line as it could have. Mizuno offers its S18 family of wedges in lofts between 46 and 60 degrees, giving you plenty of options for finding just the right club. Mizuno engineers have increased the width and depth of the grooves in the club face for the higher lofted wedges, which will allow the club to throw off moisture and dirt collected during the swing, ensuring a higher level of contact with the ball. The design of the Mizuno S18 wedge places more weight toward the top of the club face. This pushes the center of gravity higher on the blade, giving you a high level of balance as you swing the club. You’ll also receive a high level of spin on the S18 because of the balanced design in the club face, as well as better control of the ball off the club. This balance should help you achieve greater distance on shots from the rough, where you may be striking the ball higher up on the club face, according to the Golfalot review. Golfers will have better forgiveness on wedge shots with the Mizuno S18, according to Golf Monthly, because it has a wider sole than most wedges, as well as relief in the heel and toe areas. This balance certainly can help you hit shots more squarely. Plugged-in Golf says the S18 has a high level of feel, so when an experienced golfer hits a shot slightly off-center, he or she will feel the difference versus a perfectly struck shot. This feature may not be of much use to high handicap golfers who haven’t yet learned how to feel shots. Experienced golfers will appreciate the different sole grinds on the Mizuno wedges, as they’ll be able to pick the right wedge from the S18 family to match their individual swings. Golf Magazine says the S18 family is the best group of wedges Mizuno has ever developed. Pros: New design generates better control over the ball, extensive feedback when you have an off-center mis-hit, forgiving design because of the balance of the weight in the club face and sole of the club Cons: Expensive price point for a wedge, most features aimed more at experienced golfers instead of high handicap players
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