The Mack Daddy PM-Grind wedge has a unique shape to help your short game
It’s no surprise that equipment
manufacturers with significant tour presence
leverage the relationships they have with the
best players in the world to enhance their R&D
efforts.
Even so, very few companies have profited
more from a partnership than Callaway has
with Phil Mickelson. Working with Lefty,
Callaway has given us exotic creations like the
Phrankenwood and X Hot 3Deep, clubs that
have helped Mickelson compete at a high
level. Their best collaboration, however, could
very well be the Mack Daddy PM-Grind wedge.
The new club from Callaway, which will
be available for purchase on May 15th, has a
unique design that gives all golfers
(professional and amateur) the confidence to
pull off open-face shots with precision. If you
have ever skulled a flop from a tight lie,
muffed it out of the rough or found it difficult
sliding the club under the ball in a green-side
bunker, the PM-Grind is crafted to help you be
more creative and successful in your short
game.
The Mack Daddy PM-Grind wedge is an
inspired effort between Mickelson and
legendary Callaway wedge maker Roger
Cleveland. They took a standard Mack Daddy
2 wedge and grinded out a high toe shape and
a tight leading edge radius that allows the club
to rest closer to the ground. The new shape,
with grooves that extended all the way out to
the toe, gives golfers 39 percent more surface
area to play with.
“When you open up a face you start to
move away from the hosel (which is a good
thing) and out toward the toe,” says
Cleveland. “And as you open up your contact
point is higher up on the face. All the grooves
up there and toward the toe gives you
confidence where you’re going to get grab and
real good control over the ball when you hit it
there.”
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Callaway's PM-Grind wedge
features Mack Daddy grooves that extend all
the way to the toe. |
It’s hard to imagine a short game
magician like Mickelson ever needing help
executing an open-faced shot around the
greens, but turf conditions on tour have
become increasingly more challenging over
the years, especially at major championship
venues. Last year Mickelson used a
combination of Callaway’s Mack Daddy 2
wedges with a U-grind (where bounce is
moved back from the leading edge) in the
lower lofts along with a Ping Eye2 XG lob
wedge bent to 61 degrees. According to
Cleveland, Mickelson dusted off the old Ping
wedge because the club’s high toe enabled
him to open up the face for shots out of the
rough without having to worry about sliding
the club under the ball with the speed that
he’s able to generate.
Cleveland and Mickelson analyzed the
strengths of the Ping wedge and came up with
a design that featured an enlarged toe area
with a wide sole that Mickelson favored in his
wedges.
“We nailed the sole right off the bat
along with a slight modification of the existing
U-Grind,” says Cleveland. “With the shape,
you can only do so much because of the high
toe and because of weight constraints, which
for Phil, is about 306 grams.”
In order to keep the wedge from being
too heavy while maintaining the design goal of
having both a wide sole and a large impact
area, Callaway engineers drilled weight ports
into the flange which allowed the club to
perform the way Mickelson expected. As for
the grooves, it was Mickelson who suggested
that they be extended all the way through
making the wedge look even bigger than it
actually is.
 |
Weight
ports in the flange help keep the PM-Grind
wedge from being too heavy. |
Mickelson began using a PM-Grind
prototype at last year’s PGA Championship at
Valhalla which he nearly won. Since being
released, acceptance on tour has been
steadily building. Callaway staffers Jason
Kokrak and Pat Perez have added a PM-Grind
wedge to their bags while Danny Lee has been
getting adjusted to it during practice rounds.
Teaching icon David Leadbetter has called it
“the most-technical lob wedge he’s ever
seen,” says Cleveland.
Without being billed as such, the Mack
Daddy PM-Grind wedge is set up to offer a
short-game advantage at The Masters where
chipping execution is at its most demanding.
To give himself an edge around the greens,
Mickelson showed up with three models (56,
60, 64 degrees all with KBS Tour V 125
shafts). Using the new sticks, Mickelson hit a
variety of pitch shots including a signature
flop shot on the 10th hole in the second round
that landed pin high for a tap-in par. He also
holed out from a bunker for eagle on the
difficult par-5 15th hole during the final round.
While most of us will never face the
kind of short game examination that Augusta
National offers the pros, we could all stand to
benefit from having an easier-to-use scoring
club in our arsenal. Cleveland says, “it gives
you a lot of confidence because it’s so big that
it looks like a shovel down there, especially in
a bunker or out of the rough. You swing it and
the ball goes up.”
Recognizing that this wedge is ideally
suited for amateur players, Mickelson insisted
that Callaway offer a PM-Grind in a 56-degree
configuration which is the highest loft that
most recreational players should consider
playing.
The Mack Daddy PM-Grind wedge ($129
MSRP) comes in a chrome finish that has a
muted look to reduce glare and is cast from
8620 carbon steel. It will be offered in four
lofts: 56, 58, 60 and 64 degrees and comes
stock with a KBS Tour-V wedge-flex shaft. An
alternative graphite shaft will be available at
no additional charge which should make this
wedge an essential equipment purchase for
both seniors and ladies, let alone the rest of
us.