lob wedge

A golf club constructed with 60-64 degrees of loft. Such a club is indispensable at stopping a golf ball quickly once it has plopped on a green. Very useful club to have when one needs to get over a hazard and stop the ball fast to get it near the pin.

Accuracy in the placement of the club in the direction normal to the ground is critical with the lob wedge. If one's extension falls apart during the execution of the shot with such a club, the result will not be the soft, high-flying lob desired; rather, the shot is likely to be a skull. This then leads to anger.

I've never seen a lob wedge with more than a 60 degree loft, but sydnius may be correct.

When you come to think of it, when you get to an angle of 60 degrees, and you want an object to go forward when you hit it with this instrument, you're already asking for a lot. But he is correct in that this has become an essential club for the modern golfer.

If you are not a fan of the game, you may have missed this. But Phil Mickelson was on an upslope in a grass bunker not too long ago. He was standing at perhaps a 40 degree angle to the ground with the green below him. Instead of trying to hit the ball down to the green, he turned around backwards and hit a lob wedge that sent the ball over his head, behind him, landing softly on the green for a makable putt. I don't believe this had ever been done before or since.

In relation to the Tiger Woods’ Nike commercial where he's bouncing the golf ball off his wedge and then hitting it in mid-air, which would be a solid 10.0, the Mickelson trick may have only been a 9.4. But it was still pretty damn sweet to see.

Many players forget that a lob wedge takes a lot of training. Not a club for the beginner, it is very easy to skull, which means hitting the ball too far up it's side. Another disadvantage of a highly-lofted wedge is the high dispersion of the shot landing pattern, as proven by Pelz in his Short Game Bible.

A lob wedge should only be used if no easier alternative exists, as it is always a high-risk shot for the average amateur golfer.