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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
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0:00
Retro review time again and today I'm dissecting a dynasty. It's time for Titleist Vokey Wedges
0:07
As ever for these retro reviews we've teamed up with Golf Clubs for Cash, one of the leading
0:10
retailers of pre-loved equipment and they've provided some absolute gems to test like this
0:16
original Vokey. So if you're interested in getting some value for money in your second-hand gear
0:20
go over to the website or on their new app which is super easy to navigate. So what I've got with
0:26
me here is more or less the original Vokey it's the 200 series in the raw finish now I've picked
0:32
this up for the bargain price of £38.99 from golf clubs for cash which for context is less than I
0:38
paid for an Indian takeaway for me and the missus last night and the reason I say more or less the
0:42
original Vokey is if you look on the history page of the Titleist website at the Vokey wedges you'll
0:47
see there was actually one little model just before this in 1999 and this was released in 2000
0:52
and everything before that from Titleist was just a Titleist product without the assistance of Mr. Bob Vokey
0:58
So Vokey wedges, probably still for me and maybe all of you at home, the gold standard of short game excellence
1:04
But I want to see how things have progressed, not just from the press releases I get promising more spin and altered CG
1:11
I want to see that in real practical terms. So I've come down to the practice ground. I've got my full swing kit launch monitor because I want to hit some full shots
1:18
when I'm testing older wedges one of the things I really look out for is spin or spin decay how
1:24
much spin has it lost from its original state now to make sure this is fair I've actually got two
1:29
essentially identical wedges we're both at 56 degrees and we're also at 14 degrees of bounce
1:35
which will make it extra fair if you like and in terms of the looks well there's some striking
1:40
similarities in the playing position but there's also a couple of subtle differences that I want
1:45
to talk about in terms of the size the overall head shape and footprint there's not much in it
1:50
at all the hosel length is the same and the groove pattern stretches the same distance across and the
1:55
heel to toe measurement is very very similar the one striking difference i see when you put them
1:59
down is on the 200 series the leading edge is significantly rounder on the sm10 56 i've got in
2:06
front of me it's a lot more squared off and my hunch on that is because back in the sort of very
2:12
early 2000s, a lot of players and tour pros were still using 56 as their most lofted wedge
2:17
It was a little bit later that 58s and 60s became more prevalent
2:21
So, Vokey, it's something they've done with their modern wedges. When you go into the 58 and 60, you'll see the leading edge a little bit more rounded
2:28
because people tend to open and close the face on those They want a bit more versatility in the look of the leading edge So as I said because more people were using 56 as their most lofted wedge back in the day that probably why this is a little bit more rounded off
2:41
So I want to see, as I said, the spin and the performance now. So I'm going to clip a few full shots away
2:45
I've got a towel with me to make sure I clean off these faces after every shot because it's a bit wet and a bit muddy
2:50
and I want to get a true reflection. So let's just clip a few away now. I'm going to start with the 200 series
2:56
and just aim down this yardage line. Super soft feel that you would expect from a Vokey
3:08
It's come out a pretty similar flight window to what I would normally expect. Let me just scroll that down a bit so I can see
3:13
Okay, so it's 110 yards of carry, 8,700 revs of spin, and 38 degrees of launch
3:21
Okay, not too surprising. That's not particularly high or low spin. Interesting, let's go again
3:32
Again, maybe popping up a little bit higher than I would expect on my sand wedge. The spin's still pretty good there, nine two on that one
3:39
9,200 revs of spin, 109 carries, so very consistent there, no surprises
3:49
Okay, much the same there again. These are pleased with my wedge game
3:53
They're all set on top of one another. 109 again, 9,300 revs of spin
3:57
So these are decent numbers and 38 degrees of launch. That's jumped about a little bit
4:02
that's been between 38 and 41. So that's interesting. I'll give you the averages of these at the end
4:08
I'm just gonna switch over to the SM10 now. So with that SM10, we've already spoken out
4:14
of slightly more squared off leading edge, which I quite like on these fuller shots. So let's see how this goes
4:18
To the naked eye, that was a pretty identical flight window. It sat next to everything again, 108 of carry, so within a yard of that
4:31
Lower launch angle there at 36, and a touch more spin, but only, we're talking about 9,500 there
4:37
Let's clean this off. Okay, maybe a touch lower in launch I would say
4:46
Yeah, 35 and a bit there. 9,100 of spin. So in the same ballpark, 108 of carry
4:53
So really, really consistent. In terms of the intangibles that aren't on the launch monitor
4:57
I'm not really noticing any significant difference in feel. They both seem as soft and as solid as one another So that an interesting observation for me There been no like I said over over a quarter of a century or around a quarter of a century if you want to frame it like that you expect maybe a different sensation and different materials but it all
5:16
stayed pretty similar now I actually got in some hot water when I was talking about that on social
5:20
media the other day that I would have liked to have seen maybe some more innovation from
5:24
Titleist in the wedge department but as a lot of Titleist loyalists quite rightly pointed out you
5:29
You wouldn't redraw the Mona Lisa if you've got a really good product. Occasionally it just needs the odd tweak
5:34
Let me just give this a little wipe before I go again. So a lovely tight dispersion
5:46
109 again on the carry. That's popped up a little bit in spin. That's near a 9.8
5:50
So there does seem to be a touch more spin on the newer one, which isn't necessarily a surprise
5:55
but let's take a look at those averages and really quantify that. Interesting results there. So first off, I've got to say the carry was basically identical
6:03
108.5 yards, so nothing in it there on the carry. And they did get there in slightly
6:10
subtly different ways, which I'll talk about in a minute. Now, on this test, I was expecting
6:15
to be honest, pretty much identical spin numbers. And that might sound strange based on the fact
6:20
that this wedge is 25 years old and this one's fresh out the wrapper this year. But the reason
6:25
I say that is the 200 series came about before the 2010 groove rule change from the RNA and USGA
6:32
So essentially if you wanted to play this in some elite amateur or professional competitions
6:37
it might actually be non-conforming. With some other wedges I've tested, even very old wedges
6:42
that have been non-conforming, the spin rate stayed relatively similar to the newer wedges
6:46
So that was what I was expecting to see and to an extent I did. Overall the SM10 wedge was spinning
6:53
around 300 revs per minute more, launching a couple of degrees lower. So the reason for that
6:59
was some fresher, sort of more bitey grooves. You do just get a little bit more time on the face
7:04
on those bottom two grooves. So the ball tends to shoot out a little bit lower and spins more
7:08
And that's been the case of what Vokey have been trying to do since about SM7, SM8, from the tour
7:13
feedback that they get. The pros like to see the ball coming out lower, more under control and
7:17
gripping up on the greens. But that's not necessarily the case for everyone out there
7:22
So some of the amateurs out there that might be watching this, you might want to see the ball going straight up in the air
7:27
and get your stop with descent angle because you might not have the speed to generate the spin that's required
7:32
And that's what the case was here. We saw a little bit more launch, about two and a bit more degrees out of the 200 series and a little bit less spin But because of that higher launch it was coming in at a slightly steeper descent angle so depending on your delivery conditions and the conditions
7:46
you're playing in that might actually do the trick for you now for 25 years of difference
7:51
there is some subtle subtle changes there in the performance of these two wedges but it's not much
7:56
so to all you Vokey enthusiasts out there I hope you're enjoying this video if you are please hit
8:01
the like button and subscribe to the channel and get in the comments down below let me know what
8:05
your favorite Vokey series has been over the years. So that's the full shots and it was interesting to see
8:11
the data but ultimately with these shorter clubs it's all about scoring and it could be getting up and down
8:17
and saving shots here and there. So we've come to the chipping green. I'm just gonna clip a few away and spend a bit of time
8:22
hitting some different shots, different trajectories to different pins and I wanna find out
8:26
what the differences are here. So let's just clip a few away and find out
8:35
Waiting for the song. Waiting for the song
8:52
Waiting for the song. So that was a really enjoyable short game session there
9:01
I've hit loads of shots with both of those wedges, and it was actually some really interesting results
9:05
There wasn't too much in it. Probably what I saw was kind of a microcosm
9:09
of what we saw on the fuller shots. If anything, the SM10 was coming out just a little bit lower
9:15
and just felt a little bit grippier on that first bounce, but that isn't necessarily a good thing
9:20
What I saw with the 200 series, it maybe wasn't staying on the face as long
9:25
didn't feel like it was gripping up as much, but because of that, it was just popping up a little higher
9:29
in that launch angle, similar to the full shots, give me a slightly steeper descent angle and the ball was pretty much pulling up within the same
9:36
distance anyway just through a different means more descent angle than spin and that's probably
9:42
a good message moreover above these two wedges these two individual wedges I'm testing here if
9:47
you're looking at second hand wedges in general inevitably with wedges of 15 20 plus years old
9:53
you might see some level of spin decay and that's probably what I'm seeing here a little bit
9:57
But as I think I've shown and what's been demonstrated to me here is that you can make up that stopping power in other ways through descent angles
10:06
So I hope you've enjoyed that little look and that little trip down memory lane of the wedges
10:09
and I hope it's given you some good ideas on what might be beneficial to you in your wedge game
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