Remember the Lovett Wedge?

The Lovett Wedge was one of those clubs that was all over the Golf Channel back in the early 2000s. Commercials and infomercials for the product seemed to show up every time the channel came on.

Today, the Lovett Wedge and its maker, Lovett Golf Company, are gone. This wedge was in a category called "hybrid wedges" and was marketed to recreational golfers who struggled with a more standard wedge and, particularly, with traditional bunker technique.

You can still find a Lovett Wedge for sale now and then on bargain sites or eBay. But why would you buy one? They are a nearly 20-year-old product now. And the technology in standard wedges is far more user-friendly now. Golfers can easily find wedges today that boast rounded leading edges, fat soles, thick toplines, full-back bodies and other elements that appeared in the Lovett Wedge — design details that make playing sand shots easier for high-handicappers.

The Original Review of the Lovett Wedge

What follows is the complete text of our original review of the Lovett Wedge, first published on November 28, 2003.

The Bottom Line

The Lovett Wedge offers golfers a new approach to shots from sand and rough, one that golfers who are terrified of sand shots might find very useful.

Pros

• Curved leading edge and rounded sole reduce dragging and snagging.
• Eliminates need to change setup and swing for shots from sand and rough.
• Helps those terrified of bunker shots get out of the sand.

Cons

• Low-handicappers may feel it doesn't provide the precision they look for.
• Designed for those who really struggle from sand — most better players don't.

Description

• Designed for play from sand or rough.
• Large, rounded sole promotes a smooth follow-through — contact with ground is decreased.
• Curved leading edge cuts through sand or rough more easily, lessening snagging.
• Set-back hosel helps club glide through rough — lessens chances of face being turned closed.
• Tour Standard and Tour Lob models offered. Both have 64-degree lie, 4-degree bounce angle, D4 swingweight.
• Both models are 35.5 inches in steel shaft, 35 7/8 in graphite.
• Tour Standard is 59-degree loft, Tour Lob is 63 degrees.
• MSRP: $99.98 in steel, $119.97 in graphite.
• Comes with 20-minute instructional video.

Playing the Lovett Wedge

The Lovett Wedge "replaces technique with technology" the company says. And they mostly pull it off.

The Lovett Wedge allows golfers to play shots from the rough and the sand as they would a normal golf shot. This is particularly helpful to mid- and high-handicappers, golfers who tend to struggle out of the sand.

This club is clearly best suited for players who are terrified of sand shots, because it removes the need for that terror. Low-handicappers, however, and others who prefer to play from the sand the "right" way won't be as fond of this club.

Sand shots are among the easiest on the course for better players. But many recreational golfers struggle with the technique, which is very different from a "normal" golf shot.

With the Lovett Wedge, a sand shot (or shot from the rough) becomes just another golf shot with a normal swing. Take a normal stance, put the ball in the middle of that stance, take a normal swing.

No opening of the clubface or stance, no worrying about a precise point behind the ball (one inch? two inches? three?) that you're supposed to hit. Just line up the shot (aiming at the target, not to the left), swing back, then down and through to the finish, turning to face the target.

The club's technology —rounded sole, curved leading edge ahead of the hosel — cuts through resistance the way a boat's hull cuts through water.

Our high-handicap testers loved it. Some low-handicappers didn't —but, then, they aren't the target audience.