Why some wedges rust, some don't—and how much it matters

Question: It seems like the wedges tour pros use all have some rust on the head, and wedges in amateurs' bags look better. Is the rust from excessive use?

Answer: What you're seeing isn't abuse, it's intent. The wedges in tour bags are almost all raw, meaning the manufacturer skipped the plating process and shipped the head as bare carbon steel. That steel oxidizes on contact with air and moisture, so a raw wedge can start rusting before a player ever hits a ball with it.

For the most part, the wedges at your local pro shop are plated with chrome, nickel or a PVD coating, and that's the reason they look like they just came off the assembly line, even after they've been used for a while.

A wedge face is steel. Steel rusts. A plated finish adds a microscopic layer over the grooves and face surface, protecting the head from the elements and keeping the grooves from degrading as quickly. The trade-off is that a finish can slightly dull the micro-texture between the grooves found on some wedges.

A raw wedge skips the plating entirely and has a patina finish that some golfers prefer (below). But the real argument from some manufacturers has always been that raw faces deliver a little more friction on partial wedge shots from 30 to 60 yards, where spin and control matter most.

Here's the likely truth: On a full shot out of a clean lie, a raw wedge and a chromed wedge from the same manufacturer produce almost identical spin numbers. We put that claim to the test on a swing robot.

To push the raw head past anything it would see in normal play, we soaked it in a bucket of water for a week until a visible layer of rust coated the face and grooves. Then we pitted raw and plated 56-degree wedges against each other on the Golf Laboratories robot to see how they stacked up in the spin department on partial shots.

Despite the layer of rust on the raw wedge, the clubs produced almost identical spin numbers at roughly 10,000 rpm, within 45 rpm of each other. The launch, ball speed and total distance were nearly the same as well.

It's true, not having the plating can soften the overall feel at impact, but it won't add spin. If anything, the absence of the plating will likely accelerate groove wear, meaning you'll be buying new wedges sooner than you want.

Tour guys don't lose sleep over a set of new wedges because they get them gratis. Rust is cosmetic. Groove wear is the real spin killer, and it happens to every wedge regardless of finish. Check your grooves. Replace on feel and performance, not on looks.