Gear: Ping Glide Forged Pro wedges
Price: $217.50 each with Ping Z-Z115 steel shaft and Golf Pride Arccos Lite Tour Velvet 360 grip. $232.50 per club with UST Recoil 760 ES graphite shafts (From $197 at carlsgolfland.com and $199 at dickssportinggoods.com)
Specs: Forged 8620 carbon-steel with milled face and grooves and water-repellant finish. Two sole grinds with even lofts between 50 and 62 degrees, with special options available through a custom program and a special 59-degree club
Available: August 24, 2021

Drivers, fairway woods, hybrids and many modern irons are designed to maximize distance and power, but when it comes to wedges, it’s all about feel, precision and accuracy. Good wedges instill confidence because they offer versatility from awkward lies and conditions, and they can help golfers generate more spin on chips, pitches and greenside bunker shots.

Ping’s newest wedge, the Glide Forged Pro, comes in a wide variety of lofts and has been designed with spin-enhancing features to let golfers get the ball close to the hole more often.

Tour-inspired shape and size

The Glide Forged Pro's hitting area is designed to bracket and frame the ball at address. (David Dusek/Golfweek)

The Glide Forged Pro wedges are designed to be "shotmaker's" wedges. The hitting area has a darker finish than the heel and toe areas, which creates a bracketing effect behind the ball in the address position. While it has a similar offset to the Glide Forged wedge, the Glide Forged Pro has a shorter length from the hosel to the hitting area (this is known as the par area), so the blade length appears more compact. Ping has also moved the first groove down, closer to the leading edge, and made it longer to fit in the space more cleanly.

Friction face

The Glide Forged Pro wedges have grooves that vary by loft and surfacing-roughening features to increase friction and spin. (David Dusek/Golfweek)

For elite golfers and recreational players alike, wedges need to maximize spin. To do that in the Glide Forged Pro wedges, Ping machined each groove and designed the grooves differently for each club based on its loft. The gap wedges (50 and 52 degrees) have grooves with a 20-degree sidewall, which is similar to the shape found in most irons, because golfers will tend to hit these clubs from the fairway. However, the sand wedges and lob wedges (54 to 62 degrees) have wider and shallower grooves that are designed to remove water and debris from the hitting surface. Every Glide Forged Pro wedge also has a new emery-blast, surface-roughening treatment in the hitting area to add friction. Ping said the grooves and surfacing-roughening elements help the Glide Forged Pro wedges create lower-flying, higher-spinning shots, especially in wet conditions for improved consistency.

Lofts and grinds

Ping Glide Forged Pro S grind (David Dusek/Golfweek)

There Glide Forged Pro wedges are two grinds, the S and the T. The S grind (50, 52, 54, 56, 58, 59, 60 degrees) is a traditional option with 10 degrees of bounce and relief in the heel and the trailing edge. It also has a rounded leading edge. This should allow golfers to open the face and get the leading edge under the ball from a variety of lies around the green while also providing enough sole width to play effectively from a square position. The S grind is designed to be effective for a wide range of players in a variety of turf conditions.

Ping Glide Forged Pro T grind (David Dusek/Golfweek)

The T grind (58, 60, 62 degrees) has 3 degrees less bounce than the S grind, with more heel and toe relief and a narrower sole. The combination of the narrow sole, low bounce and relief should give more-accomplished golfers extra versatility. Did you notice the S grind is available in a 59-degree version? This specific club was designed based on the iconic Eye2 wedge, so it has a higher toe and 1.5 degrees less bounce than the standard S grind.

Custom options

Through Ping's custom program, golfers can chose from a wide variety of extra grinds. (David Dusek/Golfweek)

Ping has been a leading proponent of custom fitting for decades, and through the Ping WRX program, golfers can select from eight more custom grinds in the Glide Forged Pro wedges.

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