There is a lot of cool gear in the golf equipment world that doesn’t always fit neatly into Most Wanted Tests or Buyer’s Guides. You still want to know how it performs. In our We Tried It series, we put gear to the test and let you know if it works as advertised.
What We Tried
PING Glide Forged Pro Wedge Customizer– PING’s new online design interface that allows golfers to create customized versions of their Glide Forged Pro wedge.
Your Custom Builder
Dave Wolfe – MyGolfSpy writer and putter fanatic. I’ve tested hundreds (maybe thousands) of flatsticks and learned to program BASIC on a Timex Sinclair 1000.
PING Glide Forged Pro Wedge Customizer
PING enters the online club design arena with their new Glide Forged Pro Wedge Customizer. Truth be told, PING has had an online custom presence for a while. At least in terms of online fitting. I remember going to PING to get fitted for a set of i25 irons. Before I met with the fitter, I used PING’s online fitting tool to get an idea about what my build could look like. A couple of in-person tweaks later and my i25 irons were dialed in. In fact, those irons still find bag time all these years later.
Actually, PING’s history of building their golf clubs to an individual’s specifications stretches back to BC times. You know, Before Computers. Numerous golfers have gone through a PING fitting in person or online. How many of you know your PING dot color? I’m a green dot guy.
For decades, PING has bent your clubs the way you need them bent. They’ve fitted grips to your hands and shafts to your swings. Like I said, custom fitting is nothing new to PING. So what’s the big deal with PING Glide Forged Pro Wedge Customizer?
Ultimately, the new custom options for the Glide Forged Pro wedges are cosmetic additions to the existing functional ones.. Basically, you retain all the fitting options that PING is known for and you then gain the ability to make your wedge visually unique. PING still tells you how to fit your wedge to your swing but now you can customize that wedge to your eye.
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PING Glide Forged Pro Wedge Custom Options
As I mentioned, the PING Glide Forged Pro Wedge Customizer adds new aesthetic options to PING’s existing suite of fitting options. The suite of options are as follows:
- Ten different lofts and two grinds (standard or thin)
- Custom paint at six spots on the wedge
- Thirteen colors
- Four stamping options: None, toe, center, dancing
- Up to three characters stamped
- Add one of six graphic designs
- Eight steel and graphite shaft options of various flexes
- Ten grip choices of various sizes
At first pass, the number of options didn’t seem to be as expansive as some of the other design interfaces out there. The nature of the club being customized probably affects the limit. A wedge just can’t be tricked out as extensively as a putter can. Still, the number of options is akin to Callaway’s Custom driver options and that custom club turned out amazing.
Dave’s PING Glide Forged Pro Wedges
My goal was to come up with a set of wedges showcasing some of the ways you could make a PING Glide Forged Pro wedge fit your fancy. Obviously, you could choose to make your wedges look all the same. It is your wedge painting party, after all.
My current wedge set has a loft array of 50/54/58. Since that arrangement is working, I stuck with it. Well, almost. How could I not go with the 59-degree wedge since it also features the Eye2 Toe? If that extra degree proves an issue, I can always get it bent. Regardless, let’s check out what I came up with.
Here are the computer renderings and the final products.
I wonder if PING intentionally made the online preview a little less exciting than they could have. It’s a good idea. I figured that since I had designed the wedges, I knew what to expect when I opened the box. Wrong. The actual wedges were way nicer than the digital renderings implied.
Under-promise and over-deliver. Always a solid business plan.
The wedges look so much better than I expected. The designs worked better than I expected. The gap wedge captures all the patriotic 4th of July feels that I had when I put it together. The purple sand monster’s BITE teeth are perfectly goofy and appropriate as I had forgotten just how much spin new wedges generate. Sparky himself would be proud to lob the ASU 59-degree wedge into his bag. Forks Up!
Yes, there are some places where the paint fill work is not quite perfect. But, overall, these wedges look unique and add some pop to my bag.
PING Glide Forged Pro Wedge Customizer Interface Issues: Nothing Major
All in all, it was quite easy to build the various wedges online. The interface is a bit quirky and perhaps not as streamlined as it could be. An example is not allowing you to adjust all colors from the same menu page. Perhaps this keeps the bandwidth down for each page, allowing for smoother visual updates.
It wasn’t difficult to click to the next page to do the next color but it seemed unnecessary. If you change your mind on the colors, you need to click through the pages to change all of the colors.
My other interface caution would be to make sure you are selecting blue or purple. Maybe it’s just my screen but the purple looked like a navy blue. Thankfully, the text changes to show the selected color after you click it. Otherwise, I could have accidentally made a red, white and purple gap wedge.
The Takeaway: PING Glide Forged Pro Wedge Customizer
I obviously enjoy goofing around with various online club designers and the PING Glide Forged Pro Wedge Customizer continued that enjoyment. I know not all of you approach golf gear customization the same way I do. If you are someone who has no interest in customizing your golf clubs, kudos to you for reading this far. If you like this kind of thing, I’m curious to see what you have come up with.
Going custom will cost you $50 extra, boosting the customized PING Glide Forged Pro wedge cost to $249. There is a pricing dichotomy there for me as $249 for a wedge seems expensive but $50 to customize one does not. I suppose if you have committed to the $199, why not kick in the extra $50 for a custom version? Regardless, a custom wedge from JP Harrington or Anthony Taranto will set you back quite a bit more than one of PING’s Glide Forged Pro customs.
According to the website, the current order-to-doorstep time is 10 to 14 days. That seems quite fast considering that a bunch of said time will be spent traveling the country in a brown van. I suppose that since the options are cosmetic, the build time is short. However, that build time still includes loft bending, shaft gluing and grip sliding as well. Two weeks seems a quick trip from click to stick.
Design your own custom Glide Forged Pro wedges at PING.com.
Mike
2 years ago
Interesting article, but if $249 per wedge is chump change to you, it’s a hell of a lot of money to the average golfer. And why? Many of the “options” mentioned are purely cosmetic & for me, they’re meaningless (even without the customization, $199 per wedge is STEEP!) I went to 2nd swing, had a wedge fitting & bought “like new” voley wedges for less than half of the price of these.
Paulo
2 years ago
I think your voley wedges may be fake ?
Mike
2 years ago
Not a chance. 2nd Swing has TONS of pre-owned wedges, some in average condition, some in like-new condition, at prices MUCH lower than new. If you’d never been in one of their stores, I’d recommend you go check it out & then comment.