I got my 56 in the mail today and thought I'd post some feedback for anyone in the market. Ball is a Callaway Chrome Soft X. Rated 1-5 by my amateur scale.
First - Appearance: It's a very very attractive wedge. A little more rounded than I'm accustomed to, especially on the leading edge, but it reminds me of an old Hogan wedge. But it's easy on the eye, no doubt. Great finish on them, very clean lines., 4.5 stars
Second - Turf interaction: I swing my wedges fairly steep and it took a nice, shallow divot about 6" in length and cut right through very easy. Around the greens, short chips and pitches, had no problem getting through the turf or thick rough. I did notice on a couple side hill lies I hit short chips off of, ball above my feet, due to the more rounded leading edge which tends to be more towards the toe, I had to be a bit more cautious to not catch the toe early. Easily fixed by swinging a touch more outside in and the club responded well to that. Clubs lays open nicely to allow for different shots around the green without raising the leading edge. 4 stars
Third - Feel: Club feels incredibly solid at impact. A bit firmer than my RTX 3 wedges, but great feedback on full swing shots. Around the greens on the short chips and pitches is where this really shined to me. It felt almost as if you were just underhand releasing the ball with your bare hand when you hit it. Incredibly smooth and soft feel, very easy to control distance on chips and pitches. 5 stars
Fourth - Spin: The course I played today had greens that were rolling true and fairly quick for winter golf (I'd guess around a 9) but they were very firm. They would hold a shot, but spinning the ball back was very very limited. First hole I had 112 in, up hill a bit. I hit a 50 degree RTX 3.0 and clipped it well using a short swing to control spin. Landed about 20ft short, bounced once and rolled out about 5ft, left about 12ft for birdie. I moved up to 95 yards and threw down 2 balls. Hit the Vanilla 56, again not quite a full swing, both balls landed just past the hole, bounced once and spun back about 5-6ft to pin high. Plenty of action for me. 5 stars
Fifth - Bunker Play: My 56 had 10 degrees of bounce, but it doesn't appear as obvious as the RTX 3 due the different grind options on the RTX 3. The club goes through the sand well, although to be honest, it was tough to judge as the course, like many around here, had to dump tons and tons of sand in the bunkers cause of the heavy rains last year and it makes for extremely tough bunker play. Hard to rate, but it did as well as my RTX 3 did.
Sixth - Price: What can I say here? For the price of these wedges, they are going to be tough to beat. Quality wedge, and given the custom grind option if you didn't like the rounded leading edge I'm sure he could flatten it a bit. My wedge had an upgraded shaft and was under $95 shipped. 5 stars
All in all, it was a fantastic wedge and I was more than pleased with the results. If you are in the market for new wedges, I highly recommend you at least order one to try and see if it works for you. I'm redoing my wedge set again this year and will be putting the 52 and 60 in my bag for this season. Well done Chris, well done.
