Today’s post will hopefully get most of you thinking a bit more deeply about what you really get when you purchase a new set of irons. While every set – regardless of design, make, or model – has a club at the short end of the set marked with a “P,” do not let yourself be fooled: No set of irons has included a true “pitching wedge” for decades now.

In a recent review of the specifications of current iron models, the highest lofted “P-club” I could find was 46 degrees, and that was in a very traditional forged blade model. The vast majority of “P-clubs” are now at 45 degrees, with a rapidly growing number of game improvement models reducing that to as low as 42 degrees.

The basis for this “argument” is that solid technique for hitting true “pitch shots” was perfected decades ago, when Hogan, Nelson, Snead and their peers were dominating the game. In those days, their true pitching wedges were all some kind of one-piece blade design with about 50-52 degrees of loft and were used to hit pitch shots of all descriptions — high, soft-landing shots, penetrating “one hop and stop” shots, and a myriad of creative approaches in between. Those old pros learned how to use their pitching wedges to great effect and “wrote the book(s)” on effective pitching technique. In fact, Ben Hogan was so proficient with his that fellow pros dubbed it “the equalizer,” which the Ben Hogan Company adopted as the official name of its highest lofted club in a set of irons.

It’s also interesting to note that in his 1949 book, Power Golf, Hogan wrote that the sand wedge could be effective for certain greenside recoveries but listed his maximum distance with that club as 50 yards! This was written by arguably the best player in the history of the game, who listed his maximum distance with a driver at 300 yards! My bet is that every one of you routinely calls on your sand wedge for shots of 50-100 yards, so you must be better than Ben Hogan!

But back to the topic at hand, the simple fact of golf ball physics is that true pitch shots cannot be hit with an iron of only 42-45 degrees of loft, which is why those old pros didn’t try to hit pitch shots with their 8-irons, which were about that same loft back then. And you can’t either.

I’ve written before about how loft-strengthening has taken away critical scoring clubs from the modern golfer. And how these jacked-up lofts require you to be a bit more creative in putting your set of irons together to give you proper distance gaps between irons, from your highest-lofted wedge all the way down through your set.

But when it comes to those score-making or score-saving shots inside full swing range, you simply must have one or two clubs with which you can execute a variety of true “pitch shots,” and that means giving special attention to your clubs of lofts over 45-47 degrees. Do you even have the right clubs there?

I can tell you that a 50- to 52-degree set-matching club – which has come to be named the “approach wedge” or something – probably isn’t the best option, especially if you are playing a thin-faced game improvement iron design. Realize that club is as far in loft from the 6-iron as is your 3-wood, and while that design might make for an effective 27- to 30-degree iron, it doesn’t work nearly as well when you add twenty more degrees of loft, no more than it would if you cranked it down to 15 degrees and put a 3-wood shaft in it.

In today’s parlance, that true “pitching wedge” of 50-52 degrees of loft is likely thought of as a “gap wedge,” but don’t think of that club as simply the next full swing club after the one with a “P” on the bottom. It should probably be your “go-to” club for almost all your shots inside full-swing range, as your distance consistency and impact efficiency will likely be much better than it will be with a higher-lofted sand wedge or lob wedge, as impact with the ball isn’t as much of a glancing blow as with the higher lofts.

If you really want to improve your performance inside full swing “P-club” range, don’t automatically go to your sand wedge for all those partial swing shots. Instead, consider spending at least as much time testing and playing true “pitching wedges” of various designs as you do selecting a driver, putter, or set of irons.