Exclusive: Bob Vokey on working with Jordan Spieth
Jordan Spieth was one of 74 PGA Tour players to put the Titleist SM6 Vokey Wedges in play at the earliest opportunity…
Everyone talks about Jordan Spieth as a great putter but the 2015 Masters champion is a master with his wedges. He’s statistically the best scrambler on the PGA Tour and lethal from inside 100 yards.
Spieth was one of 74 players who put the new Titleist SM6 Vokey wedges into play at the earliest opportunity and was quick to register a win with them at the Hyundai Tournament of Champions.
VIDEO: Vokey SM6 Wedges review
Bob Vokey himself and right-hand man Aaron Dill have been working closely with Spieth his entire career so know a thing or two about his short-game success…
Bob Vokey: “He’s phenomenal when it comes to wedges, he’s got his own technique and it’s very, very creative. And he uses four wedges – 46Ëš, 52Ëš, 56Ëš and a 60Ëš. He’s got lots of different shots and he has different grinds for each wedge.”
Aaron Dill: “Bob and I have had the pleasure of working with Jordan since he was in High School and from the moment we met him to today he has consistently played something very similar – he really hasn’t changed much at all.”
Jordan is very easy to work with, he doesn’t require a load of crazy attention to detail” Bob Vokey: “When we launched SM6 on Tour I was a bit nervous. You’re always a bit apprehensive as you’ve got your new baby with you and you put it out there and see if it’s going to walk or run. We were at the Deutsche Bank last year and I see someone coming towards me out the corner of my eye and it’s Jordan. He says ’Voke, I’ve hit the new wedges and they are fan-tastic’ and I go ’wow’, I think we’ve really got something here. I slept well that night.”
Aaron Dill: “Jordan is very easy to work with, he doesn’t require a load of crazy attention to detail. But there are a couple of things he really likes. The raw finish – he likes to see the wedge change colour over time and he likes a really small 60Ëš.
“One thing people don’t know about Jordan is that he likes us to polish material from the top line to really bring it down and shallow it out with a little bit of toe polishing too. It’ll be a lot smaller than the traditional version but that’s what his eye has been trained to look for.”
Bob Vokey: “We also went to work with Adam Scott. He said ’Voke, I love these’. He hit them in the bunker he hit them in the rough. And the whole time I’m thinking this is pretty good. So after all that apprehension, I’m starting to feel pretty good.”
Aaron Dill: “Players like Jordan and Jimmy Walker are perfect examples of player who really value the trajectory. They play the 60Ëš in the lowest bounce option we do.
“For them they really had to focus on hitting it down but now with the CG location aligned better with impact position on the SM6 wedges they don’t have to do that as much with the CG placement up higher.”
Bob Vokey: “When you ask Jordan about his four wedges he’ll just say they all work for the shots that he wants to play – one of the things we talk about a lot is having a wedges that have a specific value – each one being able to hit three shots and not having it duplicated with another wedge – every wedge brings something to the table. I like to say well if you’ve got four wedges in your bag then use them. Don’t let your lob wedge or your sand wedge try and hit all of the shots.”
Aaron Dill: “With the SM6 tour seeding I didn’t want to expect a lot because I didn’t want to walk out disappointed but Bob and I talked about it beforehand and he said I’m going to go with 30-35 players using SM6 right away.
“Sure enough it was 74 so the product was very well received on Tour and we’re very proud of it. Every week that goes by that number continues to grow.”
Bob Vokey: “Aaron knows all the ins and outs of what the players want so even before we took it to the player Aaron had pre-built all of these wedges so it was a really busy three months for him leading up to it.
“Everything we did came from feedback from the tour players and working with the club pros. All those those little things that may have been lacking with SM4 or SM5 we carried it over to SM6.When I first saw the SM5 I thought they spun a lot but with SM6 it was unbelievable.”
Aaron Dill: I went up to Bob and said the guys were really loving the spin, I said ’are you sure these are good to go?’ He said ’I think so!’ We called up the engineers and said ’we’re seeing an awful lot of spin here are you sure these are good?’ Fortunately they were.”
Details
Loft/bounce: 46/08, 48/08, 50/08, 50/12, 52/08, 52/12, 54/08, 54/10, 54/14, 56/08, 56/10, 56/14, 58/04, 58/08, 58/10, 58/12, 60/04, 60/8, 60/10, 60/12 & 62/08 ÌŠ
Finishes: Tour Chrome, Steel Grey (RH only), Jet Black
SRP: £140
Website: Titleist.co.uk
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James Savage
Former equipment editor of NCG. Inconsistent ball-striker and tea-maker.
