The Cleveland RTX-4 wedge line has been on the market for a few months now, and you have probably already read a number of reviews of this new offering from Cleveland Golf. I might not have bothered to add to the list, but I have enjoyed this club so much that I felt that I had to chime in.
Of course, Cleveland Golf is a name that golfers associate very strongly with wedges. Roger Cleveland, who now designs wedges for Callaway Golf, built the company largely on the quality of the wedges they produced. Now a part of the Srixon family, Cleveland continues to produce innovative products that keep the company on the leading edge of the wedge market.
The RTX-4 features “Tour Zip” grooves, which Cleveland describes as “sharper and deeper” (though we all know that the USGA and R & A define groove configuration limits); laser face milling in the spaces between the grooves that takes face roughness right to the conforming limit; and additional Rotex face milling that extends to the toe of the club for that extra little bit of bite.
I was lucky enough to obtain an RTX-4 test club from Amazon.com through their Amazon Vine program. The club I got for review is a bog-standard mid-bounce 56/10 Cleveland RTX-4 in the Tour Satin finish, with a Golf Pride Tour Velvet grip on a True Temper Dynamic Golf Tour Issue shaft—straight-up, no bells and whistles. It felt good in my hands as soon as I took it out of the box, and that good feeling carried over to its performance on the golf course.
The Mid-Bounce grind is advertised as being suitable for medium to soft conditions (which describes my usual daily-fee course to a tee) for players who want stability on full shots and who like to open the face when the shot warrants. I played the RTX-4 from sand, rough and fairway lies, and was very happy with its performance. It flowed smoothly through moderate rough, glided cleanly across tight fairway lies, and worked through the not-always-ideal sand conditions in my local course’s bunkers with ease.
While I am a decent wedge player, I have never had the kind of wedge shot that zips the ball back on a string—I just don’t get that kind of super-spin on the ball with my slightly shallow angle of attack. The combination of swing weight (D5), well-situated center of mass, and optimized face milling in the RTX-4 seemed to suit me, however, and I was hitting beautiful drop-and-stop shots from bunkers and on short-approach fairway shots, with both straight and open face.
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| A nice illustration of the RTX-4’s drop-and-stop capabilities. This was a straight-face, 3/4-swing, 80-yard approach from a fairway lie to a slightly elevated green (≈six feet). (Photo by author.) |
The Mid-Bounce RTX-4 is available in 2° loft increments from 46° to 60°, with the Full grind in 56° to 60°, Low in 56° to 64°, and Extra-Low in 58° to 62°. Retailing for $139.99, the RTX-4 is available in Tour Satin, Black Satin, Tour Raw finishes. A wide range of optional shafts are offered, in both steel and graphite; numerous grip options are available, as are loft, lie, and grip customization, all at additional cost.
As the most versatile grind in the RTX-4 range, the Mid-Bounce is probably the best all-around choice for most golfers. The RTX-4 is recommended for low- to mid-handicap golfers (three dots on their four-dot low-to-high handicap range), but it suited this 24-handicap player quite well.
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