By Dennis Burkey

What Is the difference between these DeTomaso perimeter weighted, extremely wide sole wedges and the Wood Brothers wedges we offer?

These DeTomaso RISSA wedges heads have such strong perimeter weighting, and such a strong wide and deep sole they give you an immense amount of help when you need it.

Hit the ball high on the face, low on the face, out on the toe and the head itself corrects your shot and realigns the ball flight for you – automatically.  That is precisely what they were designed to do and that is exactly what the do.

But – there is a one drawback – and I will get to that in just a minute.

If you are a pretty good wedge player you will benefit from the Wood Brothers wedges.  They are what is called a muscle back, or as we call them, flat back heads.

My partner Dan, and Sergeant “Coach”  Riley, who works with us, benefit from flat back wedges.  They both are ecstatic over the Wood Brothers wedges they have.

Guys like Dan and Sergeant Riley can “lay open” the club face just about flat as a pancake then fly the wedge under the ball and pop it just about straight up.  They can also chop the flat back wedge almost straight down on a buried ball and get it out of saw grass! 

I have seen Coach Riley lay open his 60 degree Wood Brothers flat back lob wedge, pop the ball just about straight up, take three steps forward and then catch the ball behind his back!  Do not ever play that man for money, no matter how many strokes he gives you!

If you inspected the faces of my partner Dan and Coach Riley’s wedges you will see what I mean.  Dan’s wedges have a pattern of ball marks about the size of a quarter where he consistently strikes the ball.  Coach Riley has an even smaller pattern where he always strikes the ball.  Like I said, those guys are good!

How do the faces on my wedges look?  A different story.  My ball marks are mostly in an area about the size of a half dollar.  But there are some ball marks on the bottom lip, some on the top line and quite a few out on the toe. 

But, and here is the big deal – even those mis-hit shots ended up being OK.  The precision design of these DeTomaso wedge heads brought the ball right back on the target for me.  My mis-hits that should be somewhere off the green are close to where I wanted them to be.  The club, in spite of my efforts to the contrary, saved my shots!

If you need some help now and again with your short shots, these DeTomaso wedges are definitely made for you.

Now, here is what I meant about the tradeoff.

The trade off with these deep soled heads is you will not be able to lay the face wide open as much as you can with the flat back head.  Sure, you can still open them up; and sure, you can still get tons of “up pop” on the ball.  Just not quite as much as with the flat back wedge.  The reason is the deep sole – which is what guides a mis-hit shot back to the target – on these DeTomaso wedges does not allow quite as much “lay back” as a flat back club head.  However, for the ball flight correction these wedges give to you – well, it is not much a trade off at all.

The other thing is that the flat back heads are forged, not cast as the perimeter weighted heads are.  The reason is that it is nearly impossible to “forge” the shape of the deep cavity.  Forged heads give a little better feel than cast heads.  However, these DeTomaso heads are such a tightly grained investment casting that you simply can not detect the difference unless you are a really top-notch wedge player – and even then, maybe not.

How about the stopping power of each head?  Is there as much backspin with the DeTomaso wedges as there is with the Wood Brothers flat back wedge heads?  The answer is absolutely yes. Your ball will still land just as softly on the green and spin back just as much as with any flat back design.

So there you have it.  I don’t think you give up very much in view of what you get in help, consistency and game improvement.

The manufacturing method of these DeTomaso heads require a great deal of care.  The investment cast procedure to make the precise perimeter weighting distribution and the super deep bottom sole, is a costly and time consuming method.  And there is considerable hand work needed to make these heads.  But once you experience how these heads improve your short game, you’ll be euphoric!

Yes, these are the exact same heads that come in a set of the DeTomaso RISSA irons.  If you order a set of DeTomaso irons we offer, and you include the A wedge, S wedge and L wedge; these are the exact wedges you will receive.

We asked DeTomaso to make a special quantity of these wedge heads.  We bought a pot full of them so we could get the price down for you.