Mind the Gap: How to determine if the right transition club in your set should be an iron or a wedge

A gap wedge (usually 50 to 52 degrees) can be important because it bridges the distance gap between your traditional pitching wedge and sand wedge. But should that gap wedge match your irons or your wedges?

In our exclusive test with Club Champion, a national clubfitting chain and Golf Digest 100 Best Clubfitter, we found there was virtually no difference in carry distance, launch angle and dispersion between a gap wedge from a set of game-improvement irons and a blade-like specialty wedge with the same loft. There was a meaningful difference in spin between the two wedges, with the specialty gap wedge generating about 10 percent more spin than the game-improvement gap wedge.

That spin meant the specialty wedge rolled only about five feet after landing, and the iron-like gap wedge rolled about eight feet after landing. But in terms of where average shots finally ended up, the difference between the two kinds of wedges was barely a foot.

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