Forum > Golf Equipment

Russell Middleton

I was reading Golf Monthly at work last night whilst waiting to be loaded.

Cleveland had an advertisement for their new wedges.

What they have is the normal grooves, but then they have lasered four extra lines between each groove.

They are claiming that this gives their clubface the maximum amount of grip that is allowed.

Now is this just advertising hype or would it work?

Russ

Russell Middleton

It turns out that a friend of mine has just bought one of these Cleveland wedges.

So yesterday I had a round of golf with him at my golf club.

Tried the club a few times and to be honest didn't notice must backspin or extra hold.  This could just be my swing, but who knows!

Then we got to the 7th green.  I was 40 yards from the flag, the flag being at the back of the green on an up slope.

I hit a high shot towards the flag.  My ball landed two feet short of the flag and two feet to the left.  It bounced once and spun sideways towards the flag.  Then the spin really kicked in and it started it's journey back towards me. 

The result was a 20 foot putt up hill.

Normally I wouldn't have played that kind of shot.  Due to the slope I would have played a standard pitch and allowed the ball to run towards the flag.

The Cleveland wedge did feel really good when I picked it up.  The loft was 62 degrees, which is 2 degrees more than my lob wedge.

If I was looking for a new wedge then I'd certainly get a couple of these clubs.

Russ

Wayne Santorini

Brian Mccammon

Christopher Watmore

John Pettitt

It seems to me that there is a large concensus on this forum in having the ability to spin back with wedges, I wonder why?

My experience tells me that no one in the world can foresee exactly what the spin rate will be on any shot and that is why we see so many balls spinning back further away from the hole on TV.

Myself, I much prefer to be able to stop the ball fairly quickly but never want it to come back to me. I have never felt the need to buy specialist wedges as I am happy with the way I play my own.

Chris Perry

I concur with you John.  I want my ball to stop within a couple of feet of where it lands (be that rolling forwards or backwards).  That way I only have to worry about how far I hit it. 

There is an element of bravado about be able to generate an inordinate amount of backspin because it's what the pro's are shown to do on TV.  The difference is the pro's know they are going to do it every time and deliberately over hit their wedges to allow for it.  If I don't know whether I am going to get backspin or not, How do I know how agressive to be?  I'd much rather play for the correct distance and know that the ball will stop close to where it lands

Lewis Gladstone-buchanan

Jag Singh

John Pettitt

You have just confirmed that the older clubs were better made than this modern rubbish, Lewis.

Your ball pitched 18 inches short of the hole, took one hop to about 2 feet past the hole and then screwed very rapidly back past the hole to leave you with a 10 foot putt up the hill. Like I said at the time, shots of that class are not luck, you must have struck the ball perfectly and that wedge should never leave your possession. Not bright and shiny but it does what it says on the tin.

Christopher Watmore

Tim Hawkins

Now the technical bit.  The extra laser cut grooves (why do they say that like it's some sort of high tech thing, I wonder?  Its hardly new) have the same effect as the spin milled grooves on the Vokey and my old MD wedge, it just increases the 'grip' (for want of a better word) between the face and the soft ball cover especially at lower impact speeds.  The result is a much higher spin rate and therefore more fancy pull backs.  The downside is that you'll get less distance, and because more of the available force is going into spinning the ball, less predictable accuracy*. Yes, yes I know lots of people are accurate with wedges, it's just the amazing power of the human brain that can gauge the accuracy, not the piece of metal you hit the ball with.

* It's called the law of conservation of momentum - if the force at which the club hits the ball is always constant then the forces in the ball resolve into the six degrees of freedom in equal but opposite directions to the C of G - some goes into propelling the ball forward, some into axial and radial spin etc.  Without it none of us would get those wonderful trick shots like the driver wedge and the shank...

Dave ley

"* It's called the law of conservation of momentum - if the force at which the club hits the ball is always constant then the forces in the ball resolve into the six degrees of freedom in equal but opposite directions to the C of G - some goes into propelling the ball forward, some into axial and radial spin etc.  Without it none of us would get those wonderful trick shots like the driver wedge and the shank..."

I knew I shouldn't have read this at 3:46 am !

Dennis Visser

Colin Coote

i remember hearing jack nicklaus claim that if he found his new wedges imparted too much spin on the ball to make it uncontrollable when hitting into the greens he would have the clubs grooves worn down to a point where he could expect a more consistent outcome for his pitches into the greens. 

I know this related to clubs and balls many years ago when he was in his prime, but the ability to control and understand how your pitches into the green will most probably react is and always has been extremely important.  You cannot hit it and hope. 

I would advise anyone to play a wedge that they can control and know the most probable outcome and one that compliments their game the most.

good luck