By Terry Koehler, The Wedge Guy

Terry Koehler has been in the golf industry for over 30 years and currently spends his days as the President of EIDOLON Golf, a small premium wedge company in Victoria, Texas. He's been blogging for over 3 years and has written hundreds of articles ranging from golf tips to equipment issues. His blog will appear on ClubSG twice per week. You can reach Terry to have your golf questions answered at askme@thewedgeguy.com.

(Please pardon me for getting “commercial” today; I try not to do it too often.)

Well, you'd have to be living under a "golf rock" to not have heard that Titleist® has launched Vokey® WedgeWorks® Exclusive – their version of a "custom" wedge program. And while many of my friends in the golf industry have called and emailed to ask if I felt threatened by this venture of theirs into the world of custom wedges, actually I'm more flattered than fearful. What Titleist has done is confirm what we've been trying to communicate all along – your scoring tools should get more attention. And while their effort is valiant, they still don't do it as well or as complete as we do.

What's interesting to me is that this move toward custom fit wedges coincides with their move in the other direction – to fully assembling all their Vokey® wedges in China! A recent visit to an Edwin Watts golf shop opened my eyes to what else is new in the Vokey® camp (see photo right). They now have the Vokey wedges assembled by the thousands at those labor rates, rather than build them in their own factory in California.

Does this reduce quality? Probably not, but it sure does speak volumes about how they view the "personal" nature of wedges. In their product plan, wedges are a mass-produced product for the masses – one size fits all.

It's interesting that they have complemented this move with their creation of the WedgeWorks® Exclusive program. However, compared to their "street price" of $109.99 for a "standard" Vokey wedge in a store, you'll pay $40 more for the chance to have the loft, lie angle, shaft length and grip size altered to your specifications. We do that for free.

They don't offer any adjustments to swingweight, though. We do.

They offer a variety of steel shaft options – for $15-25 extra – but no graphite shaft options. [We have two graphite shafts we’ve designed just for wedges, both in two flexes.]

And while they will allow you to choose a $25 or $50 cosmetics package, they won’t offer you any guarantee of performance. Once you’ve laid out up to $225 for your "custom" Vokey wedge – it’s yours. You could have a matched pair of EIDOLON V-SOLE wedges for not much more than that.

So, while we go on building the finest wedges in the game, with full custom accommodation, we're flattered that the biggest wedge company of them all has finally figured out – at least to a degree – that a better short game won’t be found on the rack at the retail store.

And we'll continue to back our patented V-SOLE wedges with the most complete No Risk Guarantee in this or any industry. Play one of ours or 30-60 days, and if it isn't the best wedge you've ever played, we'll buy you one of theirs.


* The Wedge Guy's views and opinions are his own do not necessarily reflect those of SkyGolf.


photo source : Terry Koehler

Terry Koehler is "The Wedge Guy" and President of SCOR Golf- The Short Game Company.

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