Cleveland Golf RTX ZipCore Wedge Review

Cleveland RTX ZipCore wedge.

The new Cleveland Golf RTX ZipCore wedges are an intriguing upgrade from their incredibly popular RTX4 wedges from last year. Featuring a new weighting profile and technology in their clubhead, ZipCore promises to be a major player in the market this season.

What’s New in the Cleveland RTX Zipcore?

You’ve heard this story before: Cleveland Golf is known for their short game innovation. As a brand, you find a niche and make that your main focal point for months — or in this case, YEARS — to fine-tune and perfect your offerings every year. With any luck, you can become the pace car which all other brands follow.

Cleveland has long been a staple in the short game category. Offering wedges for any level of player (most recently the outstanding CBX2 wedges notwithstanding) in a wide range of customization options reinforces the sentiment that they want you to improve. This is especially true with the new features in the ZipCore wedges.

Believe it or not: better players need help in their short game, too. They’d prefer that help to come in a familiar look.

"Cleveland wedges are always just beautiful looking clubs, and this one is no different,” said 2019 Open Champion Shane Lowry. “They're very traditional and I just love them. You need to be able to trust what your wedges are going to do, and RTX ZipCore does everything I need it to do. I couldn't ask for anything else in a wedge."

Trust and performance go hand-in-hand with ZipCore thanks to the combination of a new low-density core in the heart of the clubhead and Cleveland’s new UltiZip grooves. (Don’t you just love these names?)

Cleveland RTX ZipCore wedge grooves.

New Low-Density Core

When it comes to consistency in a wedge, you need to consider where the center-of-gravity (COG) is located. Too high, and the ball goes too low. Too low, and the ball flies too high. While easily adjusted in your driver, you can’t do that with a wedge (yet). Things get even more unpredictable depending on where you make contact on the face.

The wicked smart R&D folks made ZipCore with this as a focus, shifting the COG while also boosting High-Low MOI for more stability high and low on the wedge face. The result is a slightly “heavier” wedge that you can feel in your swing, promoting more impacts on the sweet spot. Consistency in distance and feel are pretty important with wedge-play, wouldn’t you agree?

UltiZip Grooves

What’s better than a properly weighted wedge that helps you find the sweet spot? One that has new groove technology to help with spin, DUH!

RTX ZipCore features Cleveland’s new UltiZip Grooves. What’s new about them? Let’s go to the ridiculously precise measurements on the press release.

Compared to previous generations, UltiZip Grooves are 11% sharper and 7.3% deeper, while also being 7.4% closer together for more groove contact area. The combination and optimization of these factors ensure that RTX ZipCore generates increased spin and consistent spin performance from any condition on the course.

Hey Jeff Brunksi, what does that mean?

“The new RTX ZipCore is a technological leap forward for Cleveland wedges,” said Jeff Brunski, Vice President of Research and Development. “We’ve inserted a low-density core inside the clubhead, allowing us to create a wedge with unprecedented consistency and exceptional feel. They also feature our tour-proven grinds and most aggressive groove technology to date–all packaged in a sleek yet traditional design.”

RTX ZipCore wedges.

So Do they Work?

I’ve played the RTX ZipCore wedges for about a month now. Admittedly I was a little hesitant to veer away from the game-improvement-esque CBX2 wedges I’d fallen in love with, so I assumed there would be an adjustment period. I was pleased to learn that wasn’t the case.

These wedges look, feel, and perform great. I need a wedge that’s a little heavier due to my swing tendencies, which sometimes cause me to hit my wedges thin. RTX ZipCore addresses this perfectly, providing the right amount of “heft” to promote solid strikes and turf interaction on every swing.

Spin was also an eye-opener for me, even in comparison to previous wedge models from Cleveland. Shots around the green or from farther out spun more than what I was accustomed to, in a good way. I love to see a full shot bounce once, stop, and maybe even back up. RTX ZipCore provided this to me from almost every lie, including shots from the rough.

There’s nothing negative I have to say about these wedges, and that’s not because the brand is a sponsor. This is an incredibly well built tool to help your game. Anyone would agree, and I’m sure you will, too.

One word of caution: the clubhead is a little smaller than other wedges, which lends itself possibly to a better player category. However, because of the weighting and tech discussed above, I believe you will find the RTX ZipCore wedges to fit nicely in your game, and therefore your golf bag.

The Cleveland Golf RTX ZipCore wedges will retail for $149.99 and are available everywhere on August 14, 2020.