What you’re looking at is a Titleist Vokey SM7 60.08M loft wedge. I promise it is. But it’s so much more than that because this is a custom Wedge Wizard wedge.
The Wedge Wizard (aka Jacob Sanborn) is changing the game when it comes to custom wedges. In a time when the golf world lives for custom, this is the epitome of custom. Customize your shaft, your grind, your loft, your grip, and your driver position. But completely customize your wedge game? Titleist should have come up with that. Lucky for Wedge Wizard, they didn’t.
Custom work that is so stylish you might not want to play them.
He customizes all brands, but I’m quite partial to the Vokey line. Maybe it’s because most of my sets of clubs never came with options for wedges. Pitching wedge, sand wedge, that’s it. I never even learned about the angles of wedges until long after I was done playing tournament golf. 50°, 52°, 56°, 58°, 60° wedges? It was all Greek to me. Learning about the tools you have in your bag, the ones you may or may not need was a part of my golf education that was absent from my fledgling high school golf program.
Although social media has been blamed for many ills in our society, validly, it has been an educational gold mine when it comes to golf. From Phil Mickelson’s poorly filmed tutorials of him in flip-flops with the calves of Adonis hitting out of a bunker in his backyard to the many golf professionals who post little drills for their followers. You think you may know the game of golf, but Instagram shows you that you’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg.
The same can be said for custom golf goods as well.
It used to be that you went down to your local golf shop or country club if you were lucky, and you’d try to find something that you might be able to use. As a teenage girl, my options were limited. I ended up playing with Senior Flex shafts because my clubhead speed was too fast for the women’s shafts and not quick enough for the men’s. It was an odd fit. Now, you can customize everything from the driver position to the shaft, to the wrap of the grip on the club. The technology is incredible. But what’s missing from most major golf brands is the ability to create something with utility and beauty at the same time.
Vokey’s are beautiful on their own.
Of all the stock wedges on the market, I believe they’re the best on their own (mostly because I’m not paying $750 for one PXG wedge), but when you add a little (or a lot) of Wedge Wizard magic, you have an actual work of art in your bag. Whatever the reason, I love this club. It’s so pretty that you almost don’t want to hit it. Almost. It plays like a Titleist. I love that feeling.
It’s forged blue dripping with silver. The lines are simple, clean. But somehow this has been transformed into something so much more than a necessary tool in your golf bag. Don’t ask me how he does it. But he does it well, and it keeps the customers coming back for more. He’s done two significant product drops, one last November and one in February, and whatever he sells, it sells out. It’s not to the level of a Scotty drop or a Swag Golf Co. drop (sniper no sniping!), but it’s darn close. It will be like that soon. You heard it from me first.
The Wedge Wizard has about 20,000 followers on Instagram.
He works out of his garage, he works hard, and he puts his blood, sweat, and tears into every custom wedge. I watched an Instagram story the other week where Jacob had severely cut himself working on a wedge. He has custom orders after custom orders after custom orders on deck. You check his Instagram story to see if yours might be next. You get a taste of what he can do, and you instantly want more. At least I do.
I have two Wedge Wizard wedges. Say that five times fast. I’ve got other stock wedges. What am I going to do with all these wedges? I’m going to need a bag just for these wedges (Jones Sports Co., hit me up!).
These wedges are pure beauty. I can’t say I’ve seen Jacob complete a single wedge where I thought, “Hmm. I don’t like that.” Every wedge is unique. He never does the same design twice. He’s meticulous about that. His willingness to go for the gold (sometimes literally) every time he completes a wedge, I think, is what makes his work so alluring and mesmerizing.
But it comes at a price, literally.
One custom wedge will cost you $400. When he does a product drop and does a line of three wedges, it’ll cost you a cool thousand to get in on those designs. But, as golfers, we’re pretty used to that sticker shock. If we want the latest tour drive or putter, it’s going to cost you.
If you want Rory McIlroy’s TaylorMade Spider Mini putter, that’ll cost you around $400. Francisco Mollinari’s Epic Flash? That’s another $600. What we have in our bags are some of our most prized possessions for so many reasons. I still carry my grandmother’s Cleveland Driver from the early 2000s in my bag, even though every time I use it, it bends like Beckham. But it reminds me of her and how she taught me to love the game of golf.
You can find out more from The Wedge Wizard by heading over to his WEBSITE.
You can also check out JT’s article on Jacob that goes more in-depth with the man underneath the Wizard hat!
For most of us, golf is a nostalgic experience.
We play because we love it (most of the time). We play because we were likely taught at a younger age by a family member or a mentor to have love and passion, even when we hit terrible shots and feel like quitting. The magic of golf is what keeps us coming back for more.
The Wedge Wizard has somehow captured the magic of the game (pun intended) into every wedge he designs. The dazzling experience of hitting a solid stinger off the first tee is incorporated into the bedazzled 60° wedge. The high of sinking that up and down 30-foot putt for birdie is captured in the contrast of the blue and silver of the wedge.
I think the reason I love the custom golf gear so much is that it was never an option for me growing up and learning the game. I went to two State Championships in High School with Nancy Lopez irons. Ten points to whichever Hogwarts house you belong to if you know who she is. When I was growing up, it was still frowned upon for girls to play golf. Forget about nice gear for you to use while you play. Those clubs were not great, but they got the job done. Custom work was and mostly still isn’t an option for most women who play golf. There are exceptions, of course. Michelle Wie has custom Harry Potter wedges in her bag.
What I learned when I hung up my clubs from tournament golf
You don’t have to be pigeonholed into whatever gear huge companies want to market to you. It doesn’t have to be pink for women to use it. Hitting men’s wedges is okay. It’s okay to play with a men’s driver (which I do.) I swing the Callaway Epic Flash with a UST Mamiya women’s shaft. I love that driver. It’s okay to be the only woman playing golf on a Sunday at Shadow Creek in Vegas where Tiger and Phil had “The Match.” If you want to play golf, you better get used to those stereotypes. But I think that by playing with gear that was mostly intended for guys, it matters less and less as to who is using it. The wedge positively doesn’t discriminate.
With the very first Women’s Amateur Invite at Augusta taking place in a mere few weeks (my invite must have gotten lost in the mail), women golfers are starting to pique the interest of the general public…again. When I was growing up, everything was always about Annika and Michelle Wie. My friends and I all wanted to be like them, golf like them, win like them. Nowadays, I’d be hard pressed to name a woman golfer who is inspiring the next generation. I would love to be wrong. So I’m taking it upon myself to tell women that you can hit men’s clubs. I’m living proof. It works pretty well.
All of this is to say that if the sheer volume of custom golf gear intimidates you, fear not. Choose what you like, what you feel comfortable with, and the rest of it will follow.
