Cleveland RTZ Wedges: When “New” Really Means “New”

The new Cleveland RTZ wedges are sooo new …

(Old joke alert!)

How new are they?

They’re so new that they’ll blow away your previous notion of “new.”

They’re so new that you’ve never in your life seen a wedge like this.

They’re that kind of new.

I know what you’re thinking. You’re looking at the picture at the top of your screen and thinking, “New? It looks like a wedge. What the f^#k is this doofus talking about?”

You’re excused, dear friends, for having that knee-jerk reaction. It’s understandable. After all, the new Cleveland RTZ does look like, well, a wedge. It has grooves and everything. So, seriously, how freakin’ “new” can it be?

It’s pretty freakin’ new.

As in never-been-done-before new.

Skeptical? Don’t blame you but let’s take a look.

Cleveland RTZ Wedges: We’re talking “new“

As you know, I love dictionaries. Words matter and specificity matters even more. My old flame, my Merriam-Webster dictionary, defines “new” thusly:

Having recently come into existence; having been seen, used or known for a short time.

The Cleveland RTZ wedges fit that definition to a T. More precisely, it fits to a Z.

Z-Alloy, that is.

Z-Alloy, according to Cleveland, is a brand-new, never-before-used in golf (or anywhere else, for that matter) material that it co-developed with its suppliers specifically for these wedges.

“Our engineering team is constantly pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in wedge design,” Cleveland Golf Product Manager Casey Schultz tells MyGolfSpy. “The constraints kept coming down to 8620.”

Most single-piece wedges are cast from 8620 steel. It’s strong, reliable, stable and wears well.

“It’s been accepted on (the PGA) Tour as the standard for wedges,” explains Schultz. “We knew it had some flaws but it wasn’t broken so why not stay with it?”

However, after 12 years and six generations of RTX wedges, Cleveland needed to shake things up. With the wedge market getting more competitive, same-old, same-old wasn’t going to cut it.

The birth of Z-Alloy

“We needed a material that would give us way more design freedom than 8620,” Schultz says. “We talked to different labs and looked into other industries like aerospace where golf often pulls from.”

Eventually, Cleveland hired its own PhD-level metallurgist. Together, they found nothing in existence would be better than 8620.

“But instead of giving up, we said, ‘Hey, why don’t we make something ourselves that can beat 8620?’” says Schultz. “So we worked with these labs and vendors and created a new solution that could check all the boxes we had laid out.”

Cleveland was looking for several things from this new material. First, it wanted to shift more mass toward the center of the clubhead. We hear that all the time from wedge makers but you can’t just “move mass” and still have it look like a Tour-level wedge. Next, Cleveland wanted an enhanced feel over its previous-generation wedges. Third, it wanted better durability and performance in its raw wedges which was important to its Tour staff.

The new Z-Alloy material checks all of those boxes.

Density and feel

Z-Alloy is a lower-density material than 8620. That frees up six grams of discretionary weight, allowing Cleveland to shift CG closer to the center without radically altering the shape of the wedge. However, forgiveness must still be part of the equation. Even for a wedge, that’s important.

“It’s not just moving the CG closer to the center and sacrificing CG height or MOI just so we could have a big ‘dead center’ marketing story,” says Schultz. “Z-Alloy allows us to move the CG closer to the center while actually increasing MOI.”

You’re not alone if you thought the last few generations of Cleveland wedges were getting busy-looking. Those bumps, bulges and divides were necessary, as Cleveland tried to move mass within the constraints of 8620 while trying to make the new shaping look less hinky. Let’s call that effort an incomplete success.

With Z-Alloy, Cleveland can shift mass without all that fuss. There’s even mass left over to shift around the perimeter for more MOI.

The result is a much cleaner-looking wedge.

It also creates a better-feeling wedge. Because of Z-Alloy, Cleveland says these new wedges are 10 percent softer than the previous RTX 6 as measured by the Vickers Hardness test.

“You’re literally going to feel the wedge playing softer than what you’re currently using,” says Schultz.

We had to ask: If you want soft, why not just forge them?

“Forging is great but you lose a lot of durability and, over time, performance,” explains Schultz. “With Z-Alloy, we have a softer material that still maintains as good or better durability as any other material out there.”

While we at MyGolfSpy are staunch believers in the notion that feel does not correlate to actual performance, a sweet-feeling wedge that performs is a jillion times better than a crappy-feeling wedge that also performs.

Rust never sleeps. Or does it?

We’ve written about it so often that you probably don’t want to hear it anymore but rust doesn’t make a wedge spin more. It does the opposite.

“We have all these laser-milled and machine-milled lines on our wedge faces,” says Schultz. “Every flake of rust on those faces makes an engineer cry. It just ruins all that technology.”

Z-Alloy, however, will dry those engineer tears. It doesn’t rust.

“Lots of competitors have raw-faced wedges and people wanted to know why we don’t,” Schultz explains. “Rust flat-out makes a worse product. You’re going to lose spin performance and consistency more quickly than with a plated wedge.”

Cleveland has sold raw Tour Rack wedges for several years but a rust-proof Z-Alloy might just be a legitimate game-changer.

“The No. 1 thing Tour players care about with raw wedges is glare,” says Schultz. “Next, it has to be grindable. It also has to feel good and have the spin performance they like. They know rust doesn’t do anything for them.”

Cleveland says that, when compared to 8620, Z-Alloy reduces raw groove wear by 97 percent while improving spin retention over time. That wear was simulated with a plus-handicap player hitting more than 80 bunker shots.

“This has been the quickest our Tour staff has ever adopted a wedge,” says Schultz. “They’ve been playing 8620 wedges for years. It’s scary to put them into new technology but the acceptance and feedback have validated all the work that went into it.”

Three grinds and a floater

One thing you won’t get with Cleveland RTZ wedges is an alphabet soup of grinds. Cleveland sticks to the basics with Low, Mid and Full.

“The feedback we get is, ‘Thank you for making it easy,’” says Schultz. “We feel we can fit the vast majority of golfers into one of those three grinds and it’s simpler to understand than all those letters.”

(Somewhere, friends, there’s a K-grind with hurt feelings.)

Cleveland has stuck with three grind options for several generations but it usually has an additional “floater” grind. This year, it’s the Adapt grind with full-face grooves.

“Adapt is exciting compared to the Low Plus grind we had before,” Schultz says. “It’s for people who want a little more versatility and want to open the face up.”

The Adapt grind has added a leading-edge bounce chamfer to make those open-face shots a little easier. There’s also extra heel, toe and leading-edge relief, a C-shaped sole and a high-toe design with full-face grooves.

The Adapt grind is available in 54- through 60-degree lofts and in a 64-degree spatula.

“For a small percentage of players who want to get silly with it and hit some creative shots, there’s nothing that can beat it,” says Schultz. “With that groove going all the way to the toe, you can a lot of spin on those crazy, open-face shots.”

Cleveland RTZ wedges: Z-risk versus Z-reward

Here’s a simple question for you die-hard GolfSpies: Do you view Cleveland Golf as innovative?

Let’s put the cards on the table, people, I hadn’t, either. Solid equipment priced right? Absolutely. Top-shelf wedges? You bet. But innovative?

Market perception is one thing. Reality is another.

ZipCore, for instance, is pretty damned innovative. Another entirely new, low-density material that forms an internal core at the hosel transition, ZipCore improved feel dramatically and shifted mass toward the center. HydraZip and UltiZip are recent innovations that greatly enhanced Cleveland’s wet wedge performance.

Beyond wedges, even though we’ve seen triangular-ish drivers before, the new Cleveland HiBore XL might be the most innovative driver we’ll see for 2025.

Credit where credit is due, my friends.

The problem is that when innovation isn’t visible, it tends to get dismissed as “marketing nonsense.” That’s a shortsighted take. You may not start hitting lasers off the tee or hop ‘n’ stop pitches that land in the circle of love but that doesn’t mean the technology isn’t impactful or meaningful.

While our testing will show how the new Z-Alloy performs for Cleveland, it represents a bold step forward for a company that’s been much more innovative than golfers give it credit for.

“This is the most excited I’ve been about a product since I’ve worked here,” says Schultz. “The material is legit revolutionary and we outdid ourselves with this clean, modern look that still shifts the weight where we need it.”

Specs and customization

The Low, Mid and Full bounce Cleveland RTZ wedges follow the RTX model. Low will be available in 59- through 62-degree lofts. They have a C-shaped sole, good for shallow attack angles and open-faced finesse shots around the green. The Mid grind is a versatile sole good for all turf conditions. It’ll be available in 46- through 60-degree lofts. The Full grind has the highest bounce at 12 degrees and is best suited for steep attack angles and softer conditions. It’s available in the 54- through 60-degree lofts.

The Adapt grind features full-face grooves. The sole grind features added heel, toe and leading-edge relief for versatility. Cleveland says it’s suitable for all turf conditions and has a neutral angle of attack, with eight degrees of bounce. It’s available in 54- through 60-degree lofts plus the aforementioned 64-degree spatula.

Cleveland RTZ wedges will be available in Tour Satin and Tour Black finishes as well as the Raw Tour Rack. Cleveland will again offer its Tour Rack customization options. You can customize leading-edge and sole grinds for added toe and heel relief if you want.

If you really want to get crazy, Cleveland offers several personalization options on its website. You can get basic paint fill on five different locations on the head including the bottom groove to create an alignment line. You can also get custom engraving in three separate locations and styles along with seven laser skins, including a $5 bill, shamrocks or the U.S. flag.

For an added level of cool, Cleveland is offering seven colorful custom ferrule options. Each customization comes at a small upcharge.

Cleveland RTZ wedges: Price and availability

The Cleveland RTZ wedges in Tour Satin and Black Satin will feature the True Temper Gold Spinner Tour Issue shaft standard, with the Golf Pride Tour Velvet 360 grip. The raw Tour Rack model comes with the True Temper Dynamic Gold Tour Issue S400 shaft standard (a little lower spinning/lower launching). The Tour Velvet 360 grip is stock.

The Tour Satin and Black Satin models will retail for $169.99 while the raw Tour Rack will go for $189.99. That a raw, unplated wedge would sell for $20 more than a plated one sounds weird so we asked why. Turns out there’s a reason.

According to Cleveland, the raw models require a completely separate mold. Plated wedges come out of their molds a little smaller than the raw wedges. After milling, they’re technically non-conforming and require the plating to meet USGA standards. The raw wedges come out of the mold in their final size and, once milled, meet USGA standards. The separate tooling and the fact that Tour Rack is produced in much smaller numbers than Cleveland’s standard wedges account for the price difference.

The new Cleveland RTZ wedges will hit stores and the World Wide Web on Jan. 17.

For more information, visit the Cleveland website.