Blog, Rob wilkinson

Spin – How does this change in dry/wet conditions

Wet Club face, Ball and grooves and how it affects your shots..

Now that the weather has changed and we are facing wet conditions i thought it would be a good blog to share some recent test results showing the difference a wet club face, ball or grooves can affect your shots.

A few things are affected as soon as moisture is introduced into a wedge shot.

The first is Spin being reduced. The latest Study suggests the average wedge on the market lost roughly 35% of its spin compared to dry conditions, the worst-performing wedges in wet conditions saw an alarming 60% reduction in spin compared to its dry results. The most interesting news however, is that the best performing wedges under wet conditions only saw a drop off of only around 10% in the spin rate.

So that leads us on to how can one wedge perform better than its competitors?…

The answer is technology is make a huge difference. The latest wedge released from Mizuno the ‘T20’ with its Hyrdro-flow Microgrooves act to disperse water away from the face quicker allowing more friction between club face and ball to be created. Ping have also added this similar idea with their HydroPearl finish. Such a simple idea has allowed a huge gain in consistency from dry conditions across to facing the same shot when wet.

 

The other key factor that sees a significant change is Launch Angle. When the club face, ball or ground is wet (dew on the grass can have an influence) moisture gets caught between club and ball at contact, this reduces friction and allows the ball to roll up the club face increasing launch. 

A club face that reduces the amount of water between the two can again aid in consistency of launch, but the clubs that are not doing such a good job on average launched the ball 5* higher, with the worst performers up as much as 9* extra launch. This is the equivalent of turning your 7 iron into your 9 iron in terms of initial launch. That makes it pretty hard to predict how the ball will react upon a 60 yard pitch shot.

So although you may like your current wedges be aware that when Its wet in general the ball will launch higher and not spin how you would expect when dry.  If you do fancy looking into wedges in the future i would highly recommend you think what conditions you play in and how consistent you are all year round. Looking at a wedge with the latest technology applied can have a huge impact on your consistency before you have even hit a shot.

If this is something you would like to explore in more depth, feel free to drop us a line.

Rob Wilkinson

PGA Professional

rob.nfgc@btinternet.com