PGA Tour pros do this every week with their wedges, right? | Bag builders

I recently took a trip to PING headquarters in Phoenix and had an incredible experience when Adam Harding, from the Ping tour truck, custom milled a wedge for me.

When we visited Ping previously for Fully Fit, I had trouble finding the right lob wedge, which was disappointing because I liked how they felt off the face and they turned more than anything else I had tried the rest of the week. Luckily we were traveling west again and I was able to team up with Adam, who I had been texting for weeks about my quest to reach the wedge.

I’ve already received comments from viewers and followers that this is not “normal” and that it is difficult to compare the experience to what a consumer can get. However, that is wrong, and I am very happy to let you in on this little secret.

How did I know I needed a custom grind?

When we went Fully Fit at Ping, I really enjoyed the new S259 wedges. On full shots with the gap wedge and sand wedge, I was impressed with the feel, and more importantly, the penetrating flight that the wedges produced with more spin than I had seen in anything I tested. This was confirmed during the week long trip.

The problem was that we couldn’t figure out the lob wedge. I usually play a lob wedge with lower bounce to prioritize the ability to open the face without exposing the leading edge. This creates effective resilience and allows me to be creative.

Oddly enough, the best option of the day at Fully Fit ended up being the W-grind, but that was mainly because I could make the wedge work for more types of square-faced shots. Leaning the shaft, keeping the hands back or toe down was easy and the wedge was very forgiving, but I had to give up the option to open the face on small shots around the green. With that wide sole and so much bounce, it just wasn’t something I felt comfortable watching or performing.

This is where the custom grind comes in.

A friend of mine worked on all my golf clubs and a few years ago we discovered that significantly reducing the heel of a lob wedge is good for my game. I like to swing the face all the way open, and knocking down the heel helps a lot with that.

I also like to add a little slip to the leading edge to ensure I don’t create a blade that digs into the ground and never comes out. In 2024 I played a Mizuno T24 custom ground with class leading camber and heel relief, and for 2025 I did the same with a Cobra King, of which a new grind is the current frontrunner for the bag.

There was just something about these Ping S259 wedges that I really liked, so I texted Adam about possibly making some changes to the H-Grind, which came very close during testing. It worked well around the greens, but it was too sharp on longer pitch shots or full shots. Digging really hard and not getting out of the turf properly is a common problem with the H-Grind, and I had the same problem.

Adam was confident he could help. He texted me to say he had explored some options for that exact problem when I could next see him. You can see the whole interaction in the YouTube video we made.

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Figuring out what the custom grind should be

We started with a few shots with the “contenders”. Adam wanted to use the S259 S-Grind as a basic test, as this is PING’s “standard” gravel. It’s something that works for many players and has a unique way of showing what a player needs from a wedge. It’s not really a piece of cake for me.

Sure enough, I scraped one off the hose. Definitely not the one we would move forward with. We then went back to test the H-Grind. We were pretty confident this one would work for me around the green, so it was more of a fun test, just to show off a bit. The H-Grind does about 90% of what I’m looking for on the shorter shots around the green, but I still felt the heel contacting the surface in front of the ball.

Finally, for his own research, Adam wanted me to use the newly designed E-Grind.

The E-Grind takes the classic Ping Eye style grind and modernizes it for today’s game. It still has the Eye-grind style material recess in the sole, giving it two leading edges and two trailing edges in a sense.

The idea is to have the front of the wedge bounce lower for ease of use around the greens, but high enough to hit fuller shots. Unfortunately for me, the leading edge shape was still just a little too sharp for how steeply I get up the pitch and on full shots. Even when I tried to open it around the greens, I had trouble getting past that ‘second cut’ in the sole. We went back to the H-Grind to get a few more shots and decided this would be our starting point.

From there, Adam went to work.

He started by grabbing a new S259 H-Grind from the truck bed (without the weight gate installed) and taking it to the grinding line. Using a coarser, more aggressive tire, he began removing material.

Since Adam had done the same for himself, it didn’t take long for him to get there. He took a piece of material off the heel, and what was a bit of a knuckle in that area flattened out nicely. He then smoothed the rest of the wedge with a finer, less aggressive belt to help with mixing before tackling the leading edge.

To make it less sharp without adding too much extra spring, he had to be careful about the angle he chose to sharpen this new “slip.” By blunting the front a bit more and creating a slip, I can stay aggressive at the angle of attack without worrying about the wedge getting stuck in the ground on pitch shots or fuller shots.

Again, he started with a coarse belt to get the shape down and remove material, then finished it off with a finer belt to blend it back into the wedge. Since this was a Hydropearl 2.0 Chrome finish it is easy to see the work done, but Adam did a fantastic job blending the grind even with the finish removed.

Just to make sure we don’t screw it up

After grinding the new wedge, Adam built it to my specifications with a Project X 6.5 wedge shaft and a GolfPride Tour Velvet Cord grip.

The nice thing about building a PING wedge from scratch is access to the CTP weights (pictured above). The heads start with no weight in the gate so they can build the wedge without worrying about tip weights or swing weight, and then the appropriate CTP weight can be placed in the build at the very end to ensure proper swing weight.

This is especially cool as it means it takes no effort at all to build a unique length and, in my case, to build it the same length as a gap wedge.

Once the wedge was dry we headed back to the PING proving ground chipping green to hit the same shots we started with.

I could feel the difference immediately.

It was so easy to open up the wedge and get aggressive in my angle of attack without ever having to worry about putting the wedge in the ground. We quickly got some great shots and then went to the range to get some full shots. This is where we would find out if the whole experiment was worth it.

The good news: it was a breeze. The wedge never got stuck in the ground. It hit the ground quickly, allowing me to confidently make the first contact, but it came off quickly enough that spin values ​​remained consistent, impact location and shot consistency improved. The escape window I saw was almost perfect. One shot after another, Adam’s leading grind proved his worth. I was a very happy golfer with a new tool.

Tour experiences are great… but how can the casual golfer achieve this?

One of the common comments I’ve received since this content went live is that it’s not fair to show an experience that the average consumer can’t get.

But that’s not true.

There are many private bay mechanics who do custom wedge fittings and grinds, as well as plenty of online resources for places you can send your wedge to with notes on how you want it sharpened. Keep in mind that some things require more investment. If you really don’t think you have any options in the wedge market, it’s definitely worth investing a few more dollars to get a site just the way you need it. At least that’s how it is for me. But that’s not even the best part.

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The cooler news is that these types of experiences are available through Ping Custom. A authorized Ping dealer can work with Ping via the so-called Ping WRX program. It’s kind of an “if you know, you know” program, but it’s one of the cool ways Ping differentiates itself.

These types of offers are part of the reason Ping doesn’t sell directly to the customer. They want to make sure the equipment has been properly tested or, preferably, installed. By working with authorized dealers on things like Ping WRX, customers and their technicians can get more specific about what they’re looking for from Ping and bring this kind of experience to the everyday consumer.

Visit your local authorized PING dealer for more information about that program. However, I would probably stay away from the big box stores with this one and find a local installer or a local golf shop near you to help with ordering.

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