The wedge stories from all the major brands mostly revolve around their treatment of faces and grooves. Everyone seems to claim their approach gives you more spin—but have you noticed that they leave it at that? I still have not seen anyone publish hard data about just how much more spin they can deliver.

As you know, everything about wedges fascinates me, from shaping to face treatments, grooves to sole grinds, shafts to…well, everything. In my many years of working with recreational golfers and their wedges and wedge play, I have learned that some golfers just spin the ball more than others and that spin can vary greatly from shot to shot. I’ve written about the spin matrix many times—it is a combination of technique and clubhead speed, but certainly, grooves have something to do with that, right?

Working with the largest independent robotic testing lab in the business, we set out to quantify just what grooves really do to help spin. The testing protocol was to put two identical wedges on “Iron Byron,” one with a full “hi-tech” face and groove treatment, the other with a completely smooth face, only showing the slight marks from being CNC milled to perfect flatness.

We tested these two 54-degree wedges at 75 mph clubhead speed, which represents the “typical” recreational golfer of reasonable strength. This was NOT a tour player test, as I have always focused my research on what the rest of us need. We conducted a series of eight tests on each wedge—face square and open with dry impact and with moisture added.

Let’s just say the results were enlightening, and a wedge geek like me can really dive deep. But let me share some revealing data that you can use.

Let’s first talk about a wedge with advanced grooves, and what happens to shot data when you inject moisture and when you open the face 4-6 degrees to hit a slight cut shot.

1. On clean impact shots with a dry ball, we found spin to vary by as much as 15-20% from shot to shot. If the robot can’t get the same spin on every shot, neither can we.
2. When you open the face just a bit to hit a cut or slide fade, two key things happen:
   • Spin increases by 1500-2000 rpms
   • Distance reduces by 2-4 yard
3. But even with advanced grooves, when you introduce moisture to a square face shot, lots of things happen:
   • Spin is reduced by as much as half
   • Launch angle is higher by 5-6 degrees
   • Carry distance can be up to 4-6 yards longer

It really got interesting when we moved to the same tests with an identical wedge, but with nothing more than the face milled perfectly flat. Same robot, same clubhead speed and shaft angle at impact.

1. On a dry ball, spin was reduced by an average of only 12-15%, or less than the variance from shot to shot on a market-quality wedge.
2. Launch angle, carry distance and ball speed showed practically no difference.
3. But when you introduced moisture into the equation, you really see why we need grooves on the face of our wedges and irons.
   • Spin decreased by as much as 75%
   • Launch angle averaged almost 10 degrees higher
   • The combination of the higher launch and lower spin added up to 12-14 yards to carry distance.

The moral of this part of the story is that you should always allow for “flyers” when you are certain to get moisture or grass between the ball and clubface. But you can improve your odds for optimizing spin if you will always wipe your clubface dry and clean your grooves before each shot. [Watch the pros; after their practice swings they almost always have the caddie wipe the clubface before their shot.]

About those wedges we tested…

The wedges used in this testing were prototypes I have worked on for almost two years. I did not publish actual spin numbers because they would not be relative to the wedges in your bags. We have a big story to release in the coming weeks, but if you want to get “in the know” before everyone else, send me an email ([email protected]) and I’ll invite you for a sneak peek.

I’ll leave you with this “tease.” The prototype wedge with no grooves generated more spin than any of the market-leading wedges we tested—purchased right off the rack. I can’t wait to show the world how we did that.