I recently took a trip to PING headquarters in Phoenix and had an incredible experience having Adam Harding, from the Ping tour truck, custom-grind me a wedge.
When we visited Ping previously for Fully Fit, I was having trouble finding the right lob wedge, which was disappointing because I liked how they felt off the face and they were spinning more than anything else that I had tried the rest of the week. Thankfully, we were on another trip out west, and I got to work with Adam, whom I had been texting for weeks about my quest to dial in the wedge.
I’ve already gotten comments from viewers and followers that this isn’t a “normal” thing, and it’s tough to compare the experience to what a consumer can get. That, however, is wrong, and I’m really happy to let you guys in on this little secret.
How did I know I needed a custom grind?
When we went out for Fully Fit at Ping, I really, really enjoyed the new S259 wedges. On full shots with the gap wedge and the sand wedge, I was impressed by the feel, and more importantly, the penetrating flight the wedges produced with more spin than I had seen from anything I tested. This was confirmed throughout the week-long trip.
The problem was that we couldn’t figure out the lob wedge. I typically play a lower-bounce lob wedge to prioritize the ability to open up the face without exposing the leading edge. This helps add effective bounce while allowing me to be creative.
Weirdly enough, the best option of the day at Fully Fit ended up being the W grind, but it was mostly because I could make the wedge work for more types of square-face shots. Leaning the shaft, keeping the hands back, or going toe down was easy and the wedge was very forgiving, but I had to abandon the option of opening the face on little shots around the green. With that wide of a sole and that much bounce, it just wasn’t something I was comfortable looking at or executing.
This is where the custom grind comes in.
A friend of mine used to work on all my golf clubs, and a couple of years ago, we discovered that a significant reduction in the heel of any lob wedge is good for my game. I love to swing the face way open, and knocking down the heel helps a lot with that.
I also like to add a bit of skid to the leading edge to ensure that I don’t create a knife that digs into the ground and never comes out. In 2024, I played a Mizuno T24 that was custom ground with leading-edge camber and heel relief, and for 2025, I did the same with a Cobra King, a fresh grind of which is the current front-runner for the bag.
There was just something about these Ping S259 wedges that I really liked, so I texted Adam about potentially making some changes to the H-Grind, which was really close in testing. It worked well around the greens, but it was too sharp on longer pitch shots or full shots. Digging really hard and not getting out of the turf properly is a common issue with the H-Grind, and I had the same problem.
Adam was confident that he could help. He texted me to say that he had explored some options for that exact problem whenever I was able to see him next. You can see the entire interaction in the YouTube video we created.
Figuring out what the custom grind needed to be
We started by hitting a couple of shots with the “contenders”. Adam wanted to use the S259 S-Grind as the base test because it’s PING’s “standard” grind. It’s something that works for lots of players and has a unique way of showing what a player may need from a wedge. It’s not quite the grind for me.
Sure enough, I shanked one off the hosel. Definitely not the one we were going to move forward with. Next, we went back to test the H-Grind. We were pretty sure this one was going to work for me around the green, so it was more of a fun test just to show off a little bit. The H-Grind has about 90% of what I am looking for on the shorter shots around the green, but I could still feel the heel making contact with the turf before the ball.
Lastly, Adam, for his own research, wanted me to hit the newly designed E-Grind.
The E-Grind takes the classic Ping Eye-style grind and modernizes it for today’s game. It still has the Eye grind-style material cutout in the sole, which gives it two leading edges and two trailing edges in a way.
The idea is to keep the front of the wedge lower bounce for ease of use around the greens, but high enough in bounce to hit the fuller shots. Unfortunately for me, the shape of the leading edge was still just a bit too sharp for how steep I get on pitch and full shots. Even trying to open it around the greens, I struggled to get past that “second cut” on the sole. We moved back to the H-Grind to hit a few more shots and decided that was going to be our starting point.
From there, Adam went to work.
He started by grabbing a fresh S259 H-Grind from the truck drawer (with no weight port installed) and taking it to the grinding belt. Using a coarser, more aggressive belt, he began removing material.
Since Adam had done a similar grind for himself, it didn’t take him long to get there. He took a bunch of material off the heel, and what used to be a bit of a knuckle in that area became nice and flat. He then smoothed the rest of the wedge with a finer, less-aggressive belt to help blend before tackling the leading edge.
To make it less sharp without adding too much additional bounce, he had to be careful about the angle he chose to grind this new “skid”. By blunting the front edge a bit more and creating a skid, I can stay aggressively down in attack angle without worrying about the wedge getting stuck in the ground on pitch shots or more full shots.
Again with this, he started with a coarse belt to get the shape down and take away material, and then finished it up with a finer belt for blending it back into the wedge. Since this was a Hydropearl 2.0 Chrome finish, it’s easy to spot the work done, but Adam did a fantastic job blending the grind, even with the finish removed.
Making sure we didn’t screw it up
After Adam ground up the new wedge, he built it up to my specs with a Project X 6.5 Wedge shaft and a GolfPride Tour Velvet Cord grip.
The cool part about building up a PING wedge from scratch is the access to the CTP weights (pictured above). The heads start without a weight in the port, so they can build the wedge without having to worry about tip weights or swing weight at all, really, and then the appropriate CTP weight can be placed in the build at the very end to ensure proper swing weight.
This is especially cool when it means that there’s zero trouble in building a unique length and, in my case, building it to the same length as a gap wedge.
Once the wedge was dry, we headed back to the PING Proving Grounds chipping green to hit the same shots we had started with.
I could feel the difference immediately.
It was so easy to open up the wedge and get aggressive on my attack angle without ever fearing that I was going to stick the wedge into the ground. We quickly hit some fantastic shots and then headed over to the range to hit some full shots. This is where we were going to find out if the entire experiment was worth it.
The good news: it was a breeze. The wedge didn’t get stuck in the ground a single time. It got into the turf fast, which helps me make confident ball-first contact, but came out quickly enough that spin values stayed consistent, impact location and strike consistency improved. The flight window I was seeing was nearly perfect. One shot after another, Adam’s leading-edge grind proved its worth. I was a very happy golfer with a new tool.
Tour experiences are great… but how can the regular golfer get this?
One of the common comments I’ve received since this content went live is that it’s not fair to show an experience the average consumer can’t get.
But that’s not true.
There are lots of private bay fitters who do custom wedge fittings and grinds, as well as plenty of online resources for places to send your wedge with notes of how you want it ground. Remember, some things will require more investment. If you really think that you have no options in the wedge market, investing a few more bucks to get one ground the way you need it is absolutely worth it. It is to me, anyway. But that’s not even the best part.
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The cooler news is that this type of experience is available through Ping Custom. An authorized Ping dealer can work with Ping through what’s called the Ping WRX program. It’s sort of an “if you know, you know” program, but it’s one of the cool ways that Ping separates itself.
Offerings like it are part of the reason that Ping doesn’t sell directly to the customer. They want to make sure the gear has been properly tested or, preferably, fitted. Working with authorized dealers on things like Ping WRX, it allows customers and their fitters to get specific about what they are looking for from Ping and bring this sort of experience to the regular consumer.
For more information on that program, visit your local authorized PING dealer. I’d probably stay away from the big box stores with this one, though, and find a local fitter or a local golf shop near you to help order properly.
