Your 40-to-100-metre card: nine wedge numbers for firm Australian fairways and sea breezes

Stand 70 metres from a flag with a full sand wedge that normally flies 85 and most club golfers do the same thing: swing a bit softer and hope. Sometimes it works. More often the ball comes up in the front bunker or skips through the back. The cure is not a new swing. It is a card with nine numbers on it, three wedges and three backswing lengths, measured once and trusted for years.

Between 40 and 100 metres is where handicap golfers leak shots without noticing. A mid-marker faces that distance several times a round and, unlike a putt or a drive, has rarely measured what their own partial swings produce. This guide builds that card for Australian conditions: firm summer fairways, dormant couch in winter and afternoon sea breezes that turn a pitching wedge into a guess.

Start with the wedges in your bag

Nine clean numbers need three wedges with sensible gaps between them. Retailer guidance is typical of the industry: wedges come in lofts from 48 to 62 degrees, and most bags want two or three, spaced four to six degrees apart.

Check what you actually carry. A modern set’s pitching wedge is often stronger than the number stamped on an older one, and a golfer who adds a 56 and a 60 to a strong pitching wedge can end up with a big hole in the middle. Look up the lofts on the maker’s website or ask a shop to measure them.

Price is not the barrier it looks like. In September 2026 one Australian retailer listed the Cougar Scoresaver 2.0 at A$89.95, a Titleist Vokey SM11 at A$305.95 and the PING S259 from A$389.95 to A$419.95. A cheaper wedge at the right loft does more for your scoring than a tour model that doubles up on a loft you already have.

Three backswings, one tempo

You do not need three new techniques. You need three backswing lengths that you can find without thinking.

• Short: lead arm parallel to the ground, hands around hip height.
• Medium: hands around chest height, lead arm halfway between parallel and the top.
• Full: your normal full wedge swing, no harder than usual.

Many coaches describe these as nine o’clock, half past ten and full, picturing the lead arm as a clock hand. Use whichever picture sticks.

The rule that makes the system work: the tempo never changes. The club takes the same time to go back and through on the short swing as on the full one; it just travels a shorter path. Golfers who keep one backswing and vary hand speed can be deadly on a quiet practice ground and lost on the 16th with a match on the line, because speed has to be judged and judgement is what pressure takes away first. A backswing length is a position, and positions survive nerves. Some players count “one-two” on every wedge to keep the rhythm honest.

One session to fill the card

The fastest way to fill the card is a launch monitor bay. At Moore Park Golf in Sydney, every one of the 60 bays runs Trackman Range, which reports ball speed, launch angle, carry and total for each shot. An empty practice fairway and a rangefinder do the same job more slowly.

1. Warm up properly first; cold wedge numbers come up short.
2. Hit ten balls with each wedge at each backswing length.
3. Throw out the best and the worst of each ten.
4. Write down the carry that repeats, not the one you liked.

Record carry, not total. Roll depends on whether the green is soft after rain or baked in February, and what you are really choosing is where the ball lands.

Range balls are often built for durability rather than distance, so a chart made with them can read short on the course. If range balls are all you can use, label the card and check two or three numbers with your own ball on a quiet evening nine.

Then put the card where you will see it: a sticker on the shaft, a note in your phone, or the back of your yardage book. Under Rule 4.3a, distance information you have gathered yourself is allowed during a round.

Firm couch in January, bare couch in July

Australian turf changes the way a partial wedge behaves through the year.

Couch, the warm-season grass on a great many Australian fairways, including the Santa Ana couch at Kingston Heath, grows actively above about 15 °C and goes dormant and brown when it is colder. In a southern winter that often means thin, tight lies with little grass under the ball. In a hot January the same fairway is firm and fast.

Both conditions punish the same mistake: leaning the shaft hard towards the target to “trap” the ball. That move takes the bounce, the rounded sole of the wedge, out of play and sends the leading edge into the ground. On soft ground you get a chunk; on firm ground you get a blade across the green.

For partial wedges:

• play the ball just behind the middle of your stance, with a little more weight on the lead foot, and keep it there;
• let the shaft sit close to vertical at address rather than pressed forward;
• feel the sole brush the turf just after the ball.

A simple check: push a tee into the ground a centimetre in front of the ball and clip it after impact. If you catch the ground before the ball, your low point has slipped behind it, usually because you are trying to lift the shot into the air.

When the card is only a starting point

The nine numbers assume a clean lie, flat ground and still air. The course rarely offers all three.

Rough. When grass gets trapped between the clubface and the ball, spin drops and the ball can fly and run well past the chart number. From a lie sitting down in thick grass, aim for the front of the green.

Slopes. An uphill lie adds effective loft, so the ball flies higher and shorter. A downhill lie takes loft off, so it comes out lower and runs further. Adjust the club or backswing length rather than trying to manufacture a different swing.

Wind. A wedge hangs in the air a long time for the distance it travels, which is why wind moves it more than golfers expect. In Perth, the Fremantle Doctor is a real example: the afternoon sea breeze blows from the south-west in the warmer months, often at 28 to 37 km/h near the coast, and is strongest in December and January. Into that breeze, go one backswing length longer instead of swinging harder. A harder swing adds spin, and spin is exactly what a headwind exaggerates.

Practise the awkward numbers

Everyone can hit a stock full wedge. Hardly anyone practises 57 metres, and that is the kind of number a golf course hands you.

Pick three targets at odd distances. Hit one ball to each in rotation, never two shots in a row to the same flag, and after each ball say which backswing and wedge you chose. Random practice like this feels worse than hitting 30 balls at one target, and it transfers far better to the course.

Once a month, re-test two numbers from the card. If they have moved, update the card rather than your swing.

Where to build your wedge card in Australia

• Radar bays: Moore Park Golf’s 60-bay Trackman range in Sydney shows carry for every shot; in September 2026 a 30-minute booking with 60 starting balls cost A$22 to A$26.
• Floodlit ranges: Collier Park Golf in South Perth has a licensed, floodlit driving range, handy for an after-work session in the long summer evenings.
• Wedge fitting: GolfBox Custom, with studios in Melbourne’s Sandbelt area and in Perth, lists a dedicated Wedge Fitting and a Distance & Gapping Assessment among its fitting types. One Australian retailer offers its fitting free, while another charges A$100 for an hour, refunded if you buy. See our guide to getting irons fitted for how the options compare.
• On course: a quiet twilight nine with three balls and a rangefinder is the best test of whether the card holds up on real grass.

Panxis Golf has no commercial relationship with any retailer, range or fitter named here.

Your card this month

1. Check the lofts of your wedges and fix any gap bigger than six degrees.
2. Measure carry for three wedges at three backswing lengths, ten balls each.
3. Keep the tempo identical and change only the length of the backswing.
4. Stick the card where you can read it over the ball.
5. Spend one session a month on odd distances and in the wind.

No purchase lowers scores faster than knowing exactly how far your 56 flies from a hip-high backswing. It costs a bucket of balls and an hour.

How this page was put together

Prices and fitting fees were recorded in September 2026 from Drummond Golf and House of Golf (Australia). Panxis has no commercial link with either retailer.