Gear: Cleveland Smart Sole 4 Black Satin wedges
Specs: Three versions designed in cast stainless steel. Chipper is 42 degrees. Gap wedge is 50 degrees. Sand wedge is 58 degrees.
Who it’s for: Golfers who struggle with chipping, pitching and escaping greenside bunkers.
Available: March 4
Price: $119.99 steel; $129.99, graphite at Dick’s/PGA Tour Superstore
As a brand, Cleveland is best known for making some of the most iconic wedges in golf history. Since 1988, many of the game’s best players have loved the 588 Series and the wedges it inspired, including today’s RTX 4 Series. However, starting in the mid-2000s, Cleveland has offered unique clubs for players who struggle with consistency around the greens. Putter-length chipping clubs and sand wedges with exceptionally wide soles and high bounce angles have proved helpful for golfers who don’t have much time to practice but still want to get better.
The latest version of these clubs, the Smart Sole 4 wedges, was released in 2020, and now Cleveland is making them available in a glare-reducing black finish.
For golfers who shoot in the 60s, 70s and even 80s, the idea of taking a club out of their bag to make room for another club designed to help with a specific shortcoming might not make sense. That’s fine, but Cleveland has made the Smart Sole 4 C, G and S models for players with chipping yips, who often need two or three shots to escape a bunker and who dread hitting pitch shots. For those players, yanking a traditional pitching wedge, gap wedge or sand wedge (or all three) and replacing it with one of these clubs could instantly create confidence and lower scores.
To encourage solid contact, each Smart Sole 4 Black Satin wedge has an extra-wide, three-tiered sole and significant leading-edge bounce to reduce digging. The CNC-milled grooves remove water and sand from the hitting surface more effectively and maximize spin.
If chipping is your issue, you will want the Smart Sole 4 C wedge. It has the loft of a 9-iron, 42 degrees, but the length of a traditional putter, 34 inches. Using this club and making a putting stroke, the ball easily jumps into the air, bounces and rolls out like a well-struck chip shot.
Golfers who fear the sand will want the 58-degree Smart Sole 4 S wedge. It has an exceptionally wide sole with significant camber (curvature), so even when golfers play bunker shots from a square position, the club can work through the sand easily and help get the ball up into the air fast.
The Smart Sole 4 G has 50 degrees of loft, equivalent to a modern gap wedge. Cleveland designed it to be easy to hit from a variety of places. With the leading edge elevated and a wide, curved sole, it can help golfers who tend to hit fat pitch shots. It can be used to hit chip shots, escape from fairway rough and be used in fairway bunkers.
With practice and some lessons, these are clubs you might grow out of. Still, for new golfers who struggle with some specific short game shots or long-time players who are just tired and frustrated of seeing their scores balloon because of one shortcoming, the dark-finished Cleveland Smart Sole 4 Black Satin wedges might bring a smile to their faces.
