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Cavity Back Wedge Review - Do They Help
Mark Friesen • Mar 14, 2020
Your Irons are Cavity Backs, Should Your Wedges Follow Be Too?
The current wedges I carry in my bag are old Top Flite Tour Wedges (50° & 54°). I've gone through several expensive Cleveland wedges and a Callaway Mack Daddy MD3 milled wedge. Somehow, the Top Flite wedges always find their way back into the bag.
Snooping through the golf section at my local Dick's Sporting Goods, I came across a Cleveland CBX 60° wedge on sale for $99. I've been struggling with green side chip shots (inside 15 yards), and I was chalking it up to the fact I only had a 54° wedge in my bag and I needed more loft for softer landings.... especially when the pin is within 10 ft. of the collar.
The wedge states on the packaging that it is designed for golfers that use cavity back irons (my Top Flite obviously are not) but my Nike irons are. The sales description on this club from the Dick's website hooked me in.
- Weight distributed to the perimeter and sole to enable greater stability through impact
- Dual-V Sole uses two different V shapes to maximize forgiveness
- Front-to-back V-Shape lets you cut smoothly through the turf without loss of speed
- Face Balancing Technology positions the Center of Gravity closer to the middle of the face
- etc. - etc. - etc.
I hit a couple of soft chips on the indoor putting green in Dick's, and the worst thing in the world happened. I hit them all clean with good loft with a very small swing. This combined situation (60° wedge, good contact on an unreal surface, great sales pitch and on SALE), led me to the checkout counter.
It's a good looking club and does feel balanced through a soft swing. FULL DISCLOSURE: I have not hit this club on a course yet, I will update this article once I do. If you've read my article DIY Home Golf Simulator, then you will have an idea of the environment I tested this club in.
I really wanted to like this wedge right off the bat. That just did not happen. Part is due to the large bounce on this wedge and hitting off an artificial surface. However, that can easily translate to the course. The turf on a golf course will have more forgiveness than my hitting mat, but it will still be more challenging to get the club under the ball making clean contact.
Cleveland on left, Top Flite 54° on the right.
On the flip side, depending on your swing plane and angle, the wider bounce on the bottom of the wedge can be forgiving. I still need to test this on the course, but for my swing indoor on a mat, I make cleaner and more consistent contact with the smaller bounce. I ended up with a lot of blade and thin shots indoor with the Cleveland CBX. I also feel like the fat bounce on the Cleveland would make it difficult to open up the face in the event you have a really short shot and need immediate lift.
The other downside of the Cleveland cavity back wedge, which will be no surprise to anyone, is there is little feel. At 20 and 30 yards chip shots on my SkyTrak, the cavity back wedge was difficult at times to gauge. When I hit the Top Flite, the feedback is instant and if you've ever hit on a Skytrak... you know when you hit it and missed the shot before the simulation appears on the screen.
Conclusion:
I'm pessimistic this is going to work well for me on the course but hope to be wrong. A 54° wedge on short chip shots is not ideal in many greenside situations. If you are shanking over half-swing pitch shots, that could be because your swing angle is not steep, and the heel of the club is grabbing the ground and opening your clubface at impact. If that is happening, a club like the Cleveland CBX wedges are worth a shot. Stay tuned for an update to this article.
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