The Cradle at Pinehurst is the Perfect Place To Test These Cleveland RTZ2 Wedges...
Cleveland just released their new RTZ2 wedges with four main grind options (and a ton more custom selections available online).
Video Transcript
Now, gentlemen welcome to The Cradle.
Do not pay any attention to the yardages on the scorecard because we change them every day.
Now guys, I love first timers.
So as a memento of your first round ever in The Cradle, I'm gonna give each of you a personal gift.
Give each of you a solid brass cradle repair tool- Oh, thank you signed by me.
I love it.
I love it.
And my wish for you is you have to use it on every hole as your first shot which means you hit the green on every hole.
Every hole.
You're a good man.
Go have fun.
Thank you for your service.
That's amazing.
Thank you, man.
It's certainly been wonderful.
Thank you very much.
Okay, we are at the, the famous Cradle.
Our dogs have no jackets.
Yeah.
Because that's the way.
They say half the people that play this golf course play it shoeless, Joe Jackson.
Yeah.
We are also putting the RTZ2 wedges to the test.
We have 48, 50, 56 and bunch of 60s and 58s.
Yep.
So we're gonna secretly test the wedges.
This is a great place to test short game stuff, and we're gonna play a little bit of golf so.
We have 122 yard shot.
What do you got, fiddy?
I got 50.
Okay.
I got the 48.
And let's, It's 122 yards.
See if I can hit a little, little flighted one in there.
Or just drop kick it off the mat, get lucky.
Did he just dropkick it into the hole?
Oh, get up there.
Okay.
That could've gone worse.
As dropkick go- as drop kicks goes, that one was useful.
All right.
That was well struck.
Gimme a ground draw.
Oh, I'm short too.
Get up there.
Uh-oh.
Uh-oh.
Oh.
Uh-oh.
Oh.
Okay.
Oh.
I will say I understand why Rocco- Useful I understand why Rocco likes the no, the no shoe thing.
This is quite, quite a vibe.
We got our own Cradle Sunday bags which is also part of the vibe.
Let's go.
And here we go.
I got- Oh, I gotta use my Ed Hold on, my Ed Pitch stick here.
All right.
In, in, in, in, in.
Stepped proper like a gentleman.
Oh, we gotta give it a little effort.
Hit his ball.
All right.
Good good?
Good good.
Moving along.
I love that.
I like that a lot.
Go.
Oh!
Oh man, I really, I fell in love with that.
That's unfortunate.
That looks better.
Uh-oh.
Get down.
Aw.
First- Aw first miscur of the day.
Oh.
RTZ2 for you so far.
Well obviously in love with the fif- the 588, 58.
Yup.
Al- already been vocal about being a big fan of that one.
Look, I've always liked their 50s and 54s 'cause that's kinda what I played.
The, the ones that they sent me on the RTZ line from the, you know, last time, I loved the shape of 'em.
So, and I'm not a real super picky with that part of the bag.
Yeah.
As long as they go the distance and- Sure feel good so.
Yeah.
I'm really intrigued by their mid grind, their 588.
Those are the two, like I got my eyeballs on, but I love the way they feel, they spin.
Yeah.
And it's a Cleveland, I mean, it's, y- I can see Roger's thumbprints all over them so.
Yeah, of course.
That, that makes me, personally makes me happy.
Weak.
Weak.
Good stroke.
Oh, be somebody.
Oh, ran out of gas.
All right.
Good three.
You know, part of this trip out here to The Cradle was to do a little bit of wedge testing.
So the first one, I'm gonna talk about the one that I'm actually really, really excited about, which is the 588.
So i- if you guys have been following me a long time, you know Roger and I have a, you know, pretty close relationship going on almost 10 years now.
I've learned a lot from the man, but it's nice to see this shape again and this sole again.
And if you look really closely - No, no, no, no, no you kind of see it looks really simple.
The 588's always been a very simple wedge, but you see a little bit of a, of a drop-off back here and a little bit of a drop-off.
It's very subtle, but I would say this is ultimate middle, middle grind or middle ground wedge where players that like lower bounce can play it and players that need bounce can also take advantage of it.
So like this is on a little bit of an upslope, but I wanna feel the heel skip.
And sometimes when I get lower bounce stuff, you know, with a really aggressive trailing edge or whatever, like sometimes that wedge will stick, and I wanna be able to hit it with some speed with an open face and just feel like I can trust that heal skipping.
But now if I was gonna square this up, now I'm looking here.
I'm looking at that leading edge.
So if I wanna square this up, if I'm trying to hit something a little lower See that?
That's what it should look like.
If the wedge is proper, that's about as much as the grass will move.
So that's the 588.
Again who's it for?
It's the ultimate middle gr- middle ground wedge.
Like it's for great players.
It's for 10 handicaps, 15 handicaps and it's, it excels out of the bunker too.
So anyway, that's the RTZ2 588 grind.
Hole three, 59 yards.
I'm gonna hit it 65 and it should rip a little bit.
I'm gonna hit the same shot I hit in the last hole.
That was on accident and this time I'll hit it on purpose.
I love that.
Oh yeah, that's gonna rip too.
I wonder what the We got a camera up there.
I want a replay on that one.
I'm happy with that.
Look, look at this.
Where, where can I show this?
Look at this.
So this is the adapt grind.
I'm opening up the face so it's coming up towards the toe and I kinda I'm like really dig- I would never play a full face high toe big wedge, but I'm kind of digging this one.
Atta boy.
One up.
Atta boy.
Ah.
Felt good about it the whole time.
All right, so I have theadapt.
This is the one that I have been honing in on.
I really love it.
I think it's because of this, the leading edge has quite a bit of roll or bounce or forgiveness or whatever you wanna call it, but what are ya, I'm four inches below this ball at least, and it's on a side hill, and I'm just trying to get the wedge to kinda just scoop under it.
And I don't, I gotta tell you, I don't know that I could do this with my current gamer.
Like, that skipped a little bit.
Well, look at that, it's the same exact result.
I'm very, I don't know what it is about this.
There's, there's a lot of situations where this has worked extremely well over the last couple of days, and I'm very, very, very impressed by this one specifically.
And I also, I thought I was, I, I didn't think I was gonna like the full face design of it.
I, I don't, I don't mind it at all.
Like, I have, I've got no qualms about it.
You can actually see my strikes 'cause there's some sand in some areas I might've been in.
You can see the strike's kinda riding up towards that toe, and it's like a normal wedge would be cut off here.
And as you open it, so now I'm starting to use what's available to me, and I have a tendency to play with my wedge quite a bit.
It's a great level.
So now I have the 58 low.
Some people call this a T grind.
You see how narrow the sole is, right?
See that back edge relief.
You see that it gets very sharp up here so it's, it, it sits very, very close to the ground.
This is where it gets interesting.
Off of a tight surface like this, this is where having the leading edge low to the ground- Yeah really helps.
So if you had a, like the full, if you can see the leading edge, the full's gonna sit probably somewhere up here, and you see the, how that relates to the ball.
If you set the T, if you set the, the low down, you see how f- how that sits kinda flush to the ground?
So what that does is off of a tight lie, something like this, it makes it very easy to get the club under the ball.
Essentially what you're trying to do is you're trying to get everything out of groups two through four.
To the second groove up to group four.
That's the sweet spot.
That's where- Okay spin launch, all that stuff's maximized outta here.
So a lot of the leading edge decisions that you make, essentially the goal is to find a wedge that gets you living out of those grooves.
That's the trick.
So if you're hitting a wedge and you feel like you're hitting it okay, but you're seeing marks up here, the grind's probably wrong.
The, the, the further you start wor- going down the face, especially if you square it up or slightly open it, if you're living outta here, the wedge is probably pretty sound.
So anyway, that's the low.
It's a great wedge.
A little too knifey for me, but very, very popular on tour.
Uh-oh.
CB made it.
Oh, it stayed.
That's better.
Do it.
Here it comes.
Do it.
That's impossible.
Well, that was, see, that was, that was nip.
Okay, perfect situation here.
I landed, for whatever reason, I'm not wedging it w- really well off these mats, but this is a perfect situation to explain the full, th- the RTZ2 Full.
So this is their higher balance offering, and it's gonna look probably something similar to maybe like a game improvement sole.
Like, if you look at a ZXi5 sole, looks kinda similar to that.
But essentially what you're doing here, these wedges tend to really work on square faced shots and typically are really awesome out of the bunker 'cause they give you so much of a rudder.
Think of a rudder on a boat.
It's moving stuff out of the way for you.
But on a square faced little chip and run like this one, this leading edge doesn't really wanna dig.
So if you're gonna hit a shot like this, you know, just kinda square it up and you're just trying to chip and run it, that's about as much as it's gonna move the turf right there.
And that was a lot.
Like, to be honest, like I got really steep on that one and that almost stuck it in the ground, but as you could see, that's where forgiveness in a wedge is meaningful.
If you go out on tour, most of the things that they talk about as it relates to wedge isn't maneuverability or this or that, it's forgiveness.
They are always l- looking for the, the most forgiving wedge that they can get away with, so.
And it's for s- it's for situations like this.
Like, if I do get a little steeper, a little choppy, which I have a tendency to do, I have something that's going to bail me out, and as we all know how important the short game is, that's important.
This is a big deal.
So if you are a player that needs a little bit more help, then the full grind is your, is your grind.
There you go.
That is a really narrow soul.
The Adapt?
Yeah, I love it.
It's like a C and a T had a baby.
That was well struck.
Oh my gosh.
What was that?
Was that 56?
That could've That was spinning like an absolute monster, and that target, that darted right to the hole.
What club was that?
That was a, I choked all the way up on a 56.
105 yards is the call.
That's We gotta trust that.
Mine's either really tight or it's way longer than I thought.
That looks good too.
I love it.
Okay.
Well, you're putting for sure.
Boy, that's deceiving.
I could- That, that is not fucking 105 yards.
I might be somebody.
Turn!
Oh.
It's nice to know one of us got the Tell you what, our speed's been not great.
I tried.
I tried.
Oh.
Good three.
Thank you.
Good two putt.
Ah.
All right.
I've got the RTZ2 mid now.
This is the one that I th- thought was going to end up being my grind, the Adapt has kinda taken over.
But the beauty of this one is when you set it up square, the leading edge sits really nice, kind of like the low does.
But when you open it up, it definitely wants to expose just a touch more, but it's like, it's a very friendly exposure, if that makes sense.
So what I wanna do with this one is, this is sort of a hard pin from here, but I'm gonna do three shots.
So I'm gonna do the toe down, and we're gonna go low.
I love the amount of spin that that generates.
And then we're gonna go, and we're gonna do a slightly open face, but just kind of pitch here.
Just like that.
Again, hella spin from this close.
And then I gotta try, we'll see how this does If we're trying to get it to roll upstairs.
Oh, my G- Whoa.
Okay.
Mid grind, A+, check the box.
I might be Jordan Speith.
That was crazy.
See if I can make this little flat piece.
Why is everything going left?
Wow, that's way left.
Uh-oh.
You can show off your 588 down there.
Wow.
Ball's just, ball's moving left for the kid.
All right.
Green in regulation time.
Let's do something cool.
That was a good pass there.
It's gotta go.
Gotta go?
Yeah.
All right, we're both chipping .
Jeez.
Let's call it a, just a, the circumstances of a long day.
I don't know.
So what a day here out at Pinehurst.
Thank you to the team here for having us out.
We absolutely super appreciate it.
This is a really cool place to test wedges.
Whether him and I have excuses or whatever for our games at the moment is besides the point.
It's just fun.
We're barefoot, we're hanging out, and, the new RTZ2 stuff is really, really good.
I, I am now incredibly intrigued to maybe send an email and customize a couple of these stock grinds, because Cleveland has a really, really amazing tour grinds option that you can really customize exactly how the sole of your wedge is designed for your game.
There's a couple things that I want to do.
That Adapt is scary close to, like, really perfect for me, so I'm gonna mess around with that some more.
I think I gotta throw, after that, that freaking top spinner back there, I think I gotta throw the mid back in the conversation, and maybe the mid is the one that we do the tour grinds with.
We use the, throw a little bit of heel grind on that, maybe round out that leading edge just a touch.
And, eh, we could be doing something.
So let's, let's finish up here.
Let's hole this chip, and, and we'll say our thanks.
See what, see what Wonder does here.
Oh, I love it.
I like it a lot.
How ?
Why?
Hit that perfect.
All right, we're gonna So I gotta throw it to the hole 'cause we know it's gonna spin the bejesus.
Watch this.
Zip.
Oh, it didn't do the thing.
It was really good.
To be clear, to be clear, the, the action on the green was really good.
It just didn't do the, the thing.
That's gotta go.
Oh!
Man.
That ran out.
I thought that was like five feet short.
Don't talk to my ball.
Well, it wasn't gonna go in, but I thought- What the hell was that?
You guys over here talking to my ball?
Do you think he did that?
I do.
I think he had some voodoo on it.
Uncle.
Ah.
Uncle.
Ah.
All right.
This is a game for c- this is a game for the kids, this, this content.
Ugh.
Ugh.
Good show.
We did the thing.
Yeah.
We did it.
Thank you to The Cradle.
Ready?
I can, I can say- Ready for the freeze frame?
Hold on, hold on.
Ready?
Are you ready?
