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Retro Review: Original Vokey wedge.
Joe Ferguson tests the original Vokey wedge from back in 2000 which cost just £39 / $52 against the brand new Vokey SM10 wedge which has an RRP of £170 / $223 to see if there is a noticeable decline in spin or if older wedges from the second hand market could be a viable option for your bag.
We teamed up with second hand golf club retailer golfclubs4cash to create this video
Joe Ferguson tests the original Vokey wedge from back in 2000 which cost just £39 / $52 against the brand new Vokey SM10 wedge which has an RRP of £170 / $223 to see if there is a noticeable decline in spin or if older wedges from the second hand market could be a viable option for your bag.
We teamed up with second hand golf club retailer golfclubs4cash to create this video
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00:00Retro review time again and today I'm dissecting a dynasty. It's time for the
00:04Titleist Vokey wedges. As ever for these retro reviews we've teamed up with Golf
00:09Clubs for Cash, one of the leading retailers of pre-loved equipment and
00:12they've provided some absolute gems to test like this original Vokey. So if
00:17you're interested in getting some value for money in your second-hand gear go
00:21over to the website or on their new app which is super easy to navigate. So what
00:25I've got with me here is more or less the original Vokey, it's the 200 series in
00:30the raw finish. Now I've picked this up for the bargain price of $38.99 from
00:35Golf Clubs for Cash, which for context is less than I paid for an Indian takeaway
00:39for me and the missus last night. And the reason I say more or less the
00:42original Vokey is if you look on the history page of the Titleist website at
00:46the Vokey wedges you'll see there was actually one little model just before
00:49this in 1999 and this was released in 2000. Everything before that from
00:54Titleist was just a Titleist product without the assistance of Mr. Bob Vokey.
00:58So Vokey wedges probably still for me and maybe all of you at home the gold
01:02standard of short game excellence but I want to see how things have progressed
01:07not just from the press releases I get promising more spin and altered CG I want
01:12to see that in real practical terms. So I've come down to the practice ground I've
01:16got my full swing kit launch monitor because I want to hit some full shots when
01:19I'm testing older wedges one of the things I really look out for is spin or
01:23spin decay how much spin has it lost from its original state. Now to make
01:28sure this is fair I've actually got two essentially identical wedges with both at
01:3256 degrees and we're also at 14 degrees of bounce which will make it extra fair if
01:37you like and in terms of the looks well there's some striking similarities in the
01:41playing position but there's also a couple of subtle differences that I want to
01:45talk about in terms of the size the overall head shape and footprint there's not
01:49much in it at all the hosel length is the same the groove pattern stretches the
01:54same distance across and the heel to toe measurement is very very similar the one
01:57striking difference I see when you put them down is on the 200 series the
02:02leading edge is significantly rounder on this SM 10 56 I've got in front of me
02:07it's a lot more squared off and my hunch on that is because back in the sort of
02:12very early 2000s a lot of players and tour pros were still using 56 as their most
02:16lofted wedge it was a little bit later the 58s and 60s became more prevalent so
02:22Vokey it's something they've done with their modern wedges when you go into the
02:2458 and 60 you'll see the leading edge a little bit more rounded because people
02:28tend to open and close the face on those they want a bit more versatility in the
02:32look of the leading edge so as I said because more people were using 56 as their
02:36most lofted wedge back in the day that's probably why this is a little bit
02:40more rounded off so I want to see as I said the spin and the performance now it's
02:44going to clip a few full shots away I've got a towel with me to make sure I clean
02:47off these faces after every shot because it's a bit wet and a bit muddy and I want
02:51to get a true reflection so let's just clip a few away now I'm going to start with
02:55the 200 series and just aim down this yardage line
03:05super soft feel that you would expect from Vokey it's come out a pretty similar
03:09flight window to what I would normally expect let me just scroll that down a bit so I
03:12can see okay so it's 110 yards of carry 8,700 revs of spin and 38 degrees of
03:20launch okay not too surprising and that's not particularly high or low spin
03:26interesting let's go again
03:31yeah maybe popping up a little bit higher than I would expect down my sand wedge
03:36the spin's still pretty good there nine two on that one 9,200 revs of spin 109 carry so very
03:43consistent there no surprises
03:49okay much the same there again these are pleased with my wedge game they're all set on top of one
03:54another 109 again 9,300 revs of spin so these are decent numbers and 38 degrees of launch that's jumped
04:02about a
04:02little bit that's been between 38 and 41 so that's interesting I'll give you the
04:07averages of these at the end I'm just going to switch over to the SM10 now
04:12so with that SM10 we've already spoken at the slightly more squared off leading edge you should
04:16quite like on these fuller shots so let's see how this goes
04:23to the naked eye that's pretty identical flight window it's sat next to everything again 108 of
04:28carry so within a yard of that lower launch angle there at 36 and a touch more spin but only
04:34we're talking about nine nine and a half thousand there let's clean this off
04:44okay maybe a touch lower in launch I'd say yeah 35 and a bit there
04:489,100 of spin so in the same ballpark 108 of carry so really really consistent
04:54in terms of the intangibles that aren't on the launch monitor I'm not really noticing any
04:59significant difference in feel they both seem as soft and as solid as as one another so that's
05:05an interesting observation for me there's been no setting over a quarter of a century or around
05:09a quarter of a century if you want to frame it like that you'd expect maybe a different sensation
05:14and different materials but it's all stayed pretty similar now I actually got in some hot water when
05:19I was talking about that on social media the other day that I would have liked to have seen maybe
05:23some more innovation from Titleist in the wedge department but as a lot of Titleist loyalists quite
05:28rightly pointed out you wouldn't redraw the Mona Lisa if you've got a really good product
05:33occasionally it just needs the odd tweak let me just give this a little wipe before I go again
05:42so a lovely tight dispersion 109 again on the carry that's popped up a little bit in spin that's near
05:49a
05:499.8 so there does seem to be a touch more spin on the newer one which isn't necessarily a
05:55surprise but
05:56let's take a look at those averages and really quantify that interesting results there so first off
06:01I've got to say the carry was basically identical 108 108.5 yards so nothing in it there on the
06:07carry and
06:09they did get there in slightly subtly different ways which I'll talk about in a minute now
06:13on this test I was expecting to be honest pretty much identical spin numbers and that might sound
06:18strange based on the fact that this wedge is 25 years old and this one's fresh out the wrapper this
06:23year
06:24but the reason I say that is the 200 series came about before the 2010 groove rule change from the
06:30RNA and USGA so essentially if you wanted to play this in some elite amateur or professional competitions
06:37it might actually be non-conforming and with some other wedges I've tested even very old wedges that
06:42have been non-conforming the spin rate stayed relatively similar to the newer wedges so that was what I was
06:47expecting to see and to an extent I did overall the SM10 wedge was spinning around 300 revs per minute
06:55more launching a couple of degrees lower so the reason for that was some fresher sort of more bitey
07:01grooves you do just get a little bit more time on the face on those bottom two grooves so the
07:06ball tends
07:07to shoot out a little bit lower and spins more and that's been the case of what Vokey have been
07:10trying
07:10to do since about SM7 SM8 from the tour feedback that they get the pros like to see the ball
07:15coming
07:16out lower more under control and gripping up on the greens but that's not necessarily the case for
07:21everyone out there so some of the amateurs out there that might be watching this you might want
07:25to see the ball going straight up in the air and get your stop with descent angle because you might
07:29not
07:29have the speed to generate the spin that's required and that's what the case was here we saw a little
07:34bit more launch back two and a bit more degrees out of the 200 series and a little bit less
07:38spin but
07:39because of that higher launch it was coming in at a slightly steeper descent angle so depending on
07:44your delivery conditions and the conditions you're playing in that might actually do the trick for
07:49you now for 25 years of difference there is some subtle subtle changes there in the performance of
07:55these two wedges but it's not much so to all you Vokey enthusiasts out there I hope you're enjoying this
08:00video if you are please hit the like button and subscribe to the channel and get in the comments down
08:05below let me
08:05know what your favorite Vokey series has been over the years so that's the full shots and it was
08:10interesting to see the data but ultimately with these shorter clubs it's all about scoring and it
08:15could be getting up and down and saving shots here and there so we've come to the chipping green I'm
08:20just
08:20going to clip a few away and spend a bit of time hitting some different shots different trajectories
08:24to different pins I want to find out what the differences are here so let's just clip a few away
08:29and find out
08:35waiting for the song
08:43waiting for the song
08:58so that was a really enjoyable short game session there I've hit loads of shots with both of those wedges
09:03and
09:03it was actually some really interesting results there wasn't too much in it probably what I saw
09:08was kind of a microcosm of what we saw on the fuller shots if anything the sm10 was coming out
09:14just a little
09:14bit lower and just felt a little bit grippier on that first bounce but that isn't necessarily a
09:20good thing what I saw with the 200 series it maybe wasn't staying on the face as long didn't feel
09:25like
09:26it was gripping up as much but because of that it was just popping up a little higher in that
09:29launch
09:30angle similar to the full shots give me a slightly steeper descent angle and the ball was pretty much
09:35pulling up within the same distance anyway just through a different means more descent angle than spin and
09:41that's probably a good message moreover above these two wedges these two individual wedges I'm testing
09:47here if you're looking at secondhand wedges in general inevitably with wedges of 15 20 plus years
09:53old you might see some level of spin decay and that's probably what I'm seeing here a little bit
09:58but as I think I've shown and what's been demonstrated to me here is that you can make
10:03up that stopping power in other ways through descent angles so I hope you've enjoyed that little look and
10:08little trip down memory lane of the wedges and I hope it's given you some good ideas on what might
10:12be
10:12beneficial to you in your wedge game
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