Spin is the first number golfers look at when they shop for a wedge and on a dry 50-yard shot it barely separates anything. Every wedge in our 2026 Most Wanted test landed between 6,729 and 7,217 rpm. That is a 488-rpm spread across 15 models, which is not large.
Add water and the field breaks apart. The spread goes from 488 rpm to more than 3,700.
Some wedges give up almost nothing. Others lose more than half of what they had. If you play early tee times, live somewhere it rains frequently or just hit the occasional approach out of damp rough, this is the number that actually decides whether the ball stops.
Here is how all 15 wedges handled it.
50-Yard Wet Spin Retention: All 15 Wedges
| Wedge | Dry Spin (rpm) | Wet Spin (rpm) | Retention |
|---|---|---|---|
| Titleist Vokey SM11 | 6,857 | 6,860 | 100.0% |
| Cleveland RTZ Tour Rack | 6,729 | 6,588 | 97.9% |
| Cleveland CBZ | 6,795 | 6,602 | 97.2% |
| Kirkland Signature GEN 3 Forged | 6,891 | 6,668 | 96.8% |
| PING s259 | 6,760 | 6,389 | 94.5% |
| LA GOLF FS-26 | 7,028 | 6,544 | 93.1% |
| PXG Stick’Em | 6,918 | 5,993 | 86.6% |
| Maxfli XCW | 6,981 | 5,989 | 85.8% |
| TaylorMade Hi-Toe 5 | 6,783 | 5,697 | 84.0% |
| New Level SPN V3 | 7,062 | 5,862 | 83.0% |
| Vice Golf VGW02 Black | 6,784 | 5,040 | 74.3% |
| Edel SMS Pro | 6,862 | 4,883 | 71.2% |
| Tanso Golf Tour-W | 6,930 | 3,860 | 55.7% |
| Performance Golf ONE.1 | 7,217 | 3,506 | 48.6% |
| Ballistic Forged Proto | 6,801 | 3,130 | 46.0% |
What this means for your game
Here is the part that surprises people: losing spin in the wet does not cost you distance. Carry stayed within about a yard of the dry number for nearly every wedge in the test including the ones that fell apart. You are not coming up short in the rain.
What you lose is the stop.
The wedges at the top of the table rolled out roughly two feet on a wet 50-yard shot, the same as they did dry. The three at the bottom went from about two feet to somewhere between seven and 11. On a 50-yard shot, that is a big difference.
When the face can’t clear water, the ball skids up the grooves instead of gripping them. The Vokey’s launch angle moved a tenth of a degree between dry and wet. Tanso’s climbed 7.5 degrees, Ballistic’s 7.6, Performance Golf’s 8.8. That is a fundamentally different shot.
Higher, softer, spinning at less than half the rate, and releasing when it lands. The problem is most golfers don’t see this until they get to the course for an 8 a.m. tee time with dew still on the fairway.
A wedge is a scoring club and scoring clubs have to be predictable. The wedges at the top of this table behave the same way whatever the conditions. The ones at the bottom hand you a different club and don’t tell you.
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Titleist Vokey SM11: The Best Wet Wedge of 2026
The SM11 did something no other wedge in the test managed. It didn’t lose any spin at all.
Dry, it produced 6,857 rpm. Wet, it produced 6,860. It is the only 100 percent retention figure in the field. It also posted the highest raw wet-spin number of any wedge we tested which matters more than the percentage on its own.
Launch tells the same story. Most wedges climb when the face gets wet. The SM11 moved one tenth of a degree. Rollout went from 0.6 yards dry to 0.7 wet. Whatever you saw on a dry range, you get on a wet golf course.
This is also why the SM11 took Best for Spin in our 2026 Most Wanted Wedge test and finished third overall. Titleist builds for the wet condition and the data says so.
Cleveland is good at wet wedge spin retention
Two Clevelands finished second and third and that is not a one-year fluke.
Go back to our 2025 test and the picture is the same. The RTZ actually gained spin when we added moisture, finishing at 105.3 percent. The RTZ Full-Face came in at 104.9. This year the RTZ Tour Rack held 97.9 percent and the CBZ held 97.2. That is four Cleveland wedges across two years of testing and all four finished at the top of the wet condition.
Cleveland’s HydraZip is a combination of face blasting and laser-milled lines designed specifically to hold spin when the face is wet and it is tuned differently by loft. Their UltiZip grooves are cut deeper so water has somewhere to go at impact instead of sitting between the ball and the face. Most brands treat wet performance as something that happens to their wedge. Cleveland treats it as a design target.
Dial in your wedges
Retention is only part of the story. A wedge that holds its spin in the rain still has to hit its number and find the middle of the green which is why our wedge testing scores accuracy, consistency and spin across all three conditions rather than ranking on any one of them.
The Vokey SM11 won wet spin outright and finished third overall. The wedge that won the whole test costs $67. You can see how all 15 stacked up in every category in our Best Wedges of 2026 results.
KJC
3 weeks ago
Another helpful article. Thank you. Could we add a comparison to the previous year’s model? You probably can assemble the data. It would help some of us decide if we need to make a change to the current year’s model. BTW, I would add that comparison to include all clubs, balls, tech.