What Is the 10-Iron in Golf?
Have you ever seen, or heard of, a golf club called the 10-iron? You have, actually, even if you don't realize it. That's because 10-iron is just another name for a pitching wedge.
"10-iron" is an old, mostly no-long-used name for the pitching wedge, but it does still show up from time to time in newer club sets. In 2024, for example, there was some buzz around major championship winner Xander Schauffele's iron set when he added a club whose sole was stamped with a "10" — a 10-iron.
Schauffele's iron was stamped "10" on the sole, just as his 5-iron was stamped "5" and his 8-iron was stamped "8." But when asked to explain what that 10-iron really was, Schauffele replied, "It's just a pitching wedge."
Matched sets of irons stamped with numbers (a typical set being 3 through 9) started taking over golf in the early to mid-1930s. The numbers replaced the older names of clubs, such as the spade or mashie iron.
By the 1940s, there were still plenty of golfers for whom the term "pitching wedge" was not necessarily familiar. Golfers might have instead used the terms "pitching iron" or "pitching niblick." And "10-iron" was another term in use. The pitching wedge, whatever you called it, followed after the 9-iron, after all, in a set of irons/wedges.
In 1938, the newspaper in Sydney, Australia, related the clubs used in a round by Jim Ferrier. On the 520-yard fifth hole, the paper reported, Ferrier had used a "drive, brassie, No. 10 iron, one putt." It was 1938, and golf media was still mixing the old names (brassie) with the numbered clubs still relatively new to the scene.
In the 1940s, prominent golfers such as Dick Chapman (in his 1940 book Golf As I Play It, affiliate link) and Betty Hicks (in her 1949 book Golf Manual for Teachers, affiliate link) were still using "10-iron" for pitching wedge.
By the 1950s, though, "pitching wedge" was the near-universally used term for that club. And equipment manufacturers stamped either a "P" or "PW" on the soles of such clubs, rather than "10."
But nostalgia is powerful in golf, and many clubmakers like to bring back the old names or labels from time-to-time. So, as with Schauffele's 10-iron in 2024, you might still run across newly made clubs that employ the 10-iron label. Even so, it remains a rarity to hear golfers saying 10-iron rather than pitching wedge.
Related articles:
- This is what the numbers on a golf ball mean
- Is it OK to repair pitch marks with a tee?
- What are the 'short irons' in golf?
Barath, Ryan. "Xander Schauffele’s 10-iron? Here’s why it’s not as unusual as it sounds," Golf.com, January 5, 2024, https://golf.com/gear/xander-schauffele-10-iron-bag-sentry/.
Chapman, Richard D., and Sands, Ledyard. Golf As I Play It, 1940, Carlyle House.
Hicks, Betty, and Griffin, Ellen. Golf Manual for Teachers, 1949, The C.V. Mosby Company.
Sydney Morning Herald. "Ferrier's Dream Round," November 3, 1938.
