An ideal time to use a chipper would be when you are just off the green, but not in high grass
WEDGES & CHIPPERS
Wedges & Chippers
Whether you are trying to get out of a bunker, or looking to successfully tackle your short game, golf wedges offer you maximum control, making them a vital component in your arsenal of clubs.
Wedge
Wedges & chippers
Wedges are a subclass of irons with greater loft than the numbered irons (generally starting at 47°–48° of loft, above the 9-irons of 44°–45°), and other features such as high-mass club heads and wide soles that allow for easier use in tricky lies. Wedges are used for a variety of short-distance, high-altitude, high-accuracy ’utility’ shots, such as hitting the ball onto the green (“approach” shots), placing the ball accurately on the fairway for a better shot at the green (“lay-up” shots), or hitting the ball out of hazards or rough onto the green (chipping). There are five main types of wedges, with lofts ranging from 45° to 64°: pitching wedge (PW, 48–50°), gap wedge (GW, also “approach”, “attack”, “utility”, or “dual” wedge, typically 52–54°), sand wedge (SW, 55–56°), lob wedge (LW, 58°–60°), and ultra lob wedge (sometimes called the “flop wedge” or FW, 64°–68°).
Wedges, and the golfer’s “short game”, have come to be emphasized by pro players and teachers/coaches as an area of critical importance. By simple math, with par for a hole based on 2 putts, and at least one additional stroke needed to get the ball on the green, a scratch golfer will take up to 54 strokes on a typical par-72 course with the intention of getting on the green and/or in the hole; only about a third of the strokes taken in a round will be with a wood or long iron with the main intent being distance. In cases where the player doesn’t make “green in regulation” (meaning the ball is not on the green with two strokes left for putts), shots normally taken as putts must instead be used to approach, and so must be very accurate in direction and distance in order to set the ball up for a one-putt par (the chip shot and putt combination is called an “up and down”) or even a birdie or eagle made with the chip shot itself. Even touring professionals miss an average of 6 GIRs in a round, making chip shots and other close-in strokes typically made with wedges that much more important.
Wedges & Chippers
Chipper
Wedges & chippers
Present in some golfers’ bags is the chipper, a club designed to feel like a putter but with a more lofted face, used with a putting motion to lift the ball out of the higher grass of the rough and fringe and drop it on the green, where it will then roll like a putt. This club replaces the use of a high-lofted iron to make the same shot, and allows the player to make the shot from a stance and with a motion nearly identical to a putt, which is more difficult with a lofted iron due to a difference in lie angle.
Most chippers have a loft greater than 10 degrees, which is the maximum loft permitted by the Rules of Golf for a club to be classed as a putter, so these clubs are actually classed as irons. To be legal for sanctioned play, a chipper cannot have any feature that is defined in the rules as allowable only on putters, e.g. two striking faces or a flat-topped “putter grip”. This disqualifies many chipper designs, but there are some USGA-conforming chippers, and non-conforming designs can still be used for informal play.
Wedges & chippers
The class of wedges grew out of the need for a better club for playing soft lies and short shots. Prior to the 1930s, the best club for short “approach” shots was the “niblick“, roughly equivalent to today’s 9-iron or pitching wedge in loft; however the design of this club, with a flat, angled face and virtually no “sole”, made it difficult to use in sand and other soft lies as it was prone to dig into soft turf. The club most often used for bunker shots was called the “jigger”; it was used similarly to today’s pitching wedge, and had a similar short shaft, but its loft was closer to the “mashie” of the day (equivalent to today’s 4-iron). The lower loft prevented the club “digging in” to soft lies, but the low launch angle and relatively high resistance to the club moving through the sand to “dig out” a buried ball made recovery from a bunker with this club very difficult. The club was also not ideal for approach shots from a bunker near the green, as a chip shot made with this club tended to roll for most of its distance.
Wedges & chippers
Wedges & chippers
Sarazen’s new club, including the wide, angled sole, was ruled legal by both R&A and USGA authorities, and the club itself and its basic design concepts became widely copied by other golfers and by club manufacturers. As irons became more standardized in the 20s through the 40s, the wide sole of the sand wedge was copied on other mid- and high-lofted irons to add mass, which compensates for the progressively shorter shaft lengths to provide a similar feel across all the irons with a given swing. The highest-lofted irons got the most additional weight, resulting in the widest soles, giving these clubs the same eponymous wedge-shaped profile as the sand wedge. This led to the tradition of calling these high-lofted irons “wedges”, regardless of the amount of bounce (angle of the sole to the ground) that the sole provided.
The modern sand wedge, the first of the clubs to be called a wedge, was developed by Gene Sarazen after flying in Howard Hughes‘ private plane. Sarazen noticed the flaps on the wings that were lowered on takeoff to help create lift, and surmised that the same could be done to a high-lofted golf club to help the clubhead cut through and then lift out of the sand (bringing the ball with it). He built his first prototype in 1931 by taking a niblick and soldering extra lead to its sole to add mass, then adjusting the angle of the sole to about 10 degrees from level with the ground, which he found to be the optimal angle to prevent the clubhead either digging deeply into the sand or skimming (bouncing) along the top. The resulting clubhead profile was roughly wedge-shaped as opposed to the blade-like style of high-lofted irons, hence the name. He brought his new club to compete in the 1932 British Open, but kept it hidden from the authorities to avoid having it ruled illegal. He won that tournament with a then-record score of 283 (the sum of four rounds of play), and also won the subsequent 1932 U.S. Open with a final-round score of 66 that would stand as a tournament record for almost 30 years.