Raw Wedge Rust

[ilikegolf26]

Had a question about raw wedges and rusting. I’ve had a Vokey WW Raw wedge for about 2 months now and it has rusted really heavy similar to a rusty nail. Same thing with a gamer SM9 I’ve had for a little longer. I see a lot of WITBs and most of these same wedges only have a smattering of rust spots on them. Why is this? I live in the same climate as many tour pros (south Florida) so I doubt it’s that. I also store my clubs inside my house and have a SM9 that’s out of the plastic but I haven’t used that hasn’t shown any rust yet after about 2 months.  Assumed maybe it’s the condensation that forms on drives to the course with the hot humid air outside and the AC running in my car?

 

I am fine with the way the wedges look and know I can use some vinegar if I wanted to remove some of the rust but I was just wondering why it would do this. 

[MattM97]

Luck of the draw, I have some carbon putters, 1 went completely chocolate brown on Patina, another looks brand new, had a few others that also looked new. 

[dubbelbogey]

Assuming you mean WITBs of tour pros, likely this is because their wedges typically get replaced often (like every few tournaments or so.) Just not enough time for many of them to fully rust before getting replaced.

 

Not to sidetrack the original topic, but I find the whole "replace your wedges often" recreational a bit silly for anybody who does not get clubs for free. No doubt, a brand new wedge will impart more spin than one that is not new. I'm not disputing that, but I also am of the belief that once the "super fresh" spin (that pros like and depend upon) wears off, wedges go through a very long phase of what I'll call "pretty decent performance" before they wear out to the point where they cannot impart sufficient spin for most shots. This is analogous to how a super sharp pencil (remember those?) doesn't stay sharp very long, but a semi-sharp pencil will hold a point for a relatively long time. As long as one is not pounding thousands of balls with sand on the face, I'm of the mind wedges have a much longer useful life than the mfrs and their club review podcast lackeys want you to believe. Most of us recreational-to-semi-serious golfers can learn to play a very efficient wedge game with wedges with less-than-ultimately fresh faces.

 

 

[oskaru]

If using tour players' bags as a reference also keep in mind that they all literally have a person on their bag who wipes them after more or less every shot. 

 

I've had raw wedges for as long as I can remember and I try to keep them clean and dry. They do go darker and get some patina over time but the only ones that actually came close to rusting were my old Nike Engages.

[ilikegolf26]

3 hours ago, MattM97 said:

Luck of the draw, I have some carbon putters, 1 went completely chocolate brown on Patina, another looks brand new, had a few others that also looked new. 

Maybe but every raw wedge I’ve played has rusted pretty good regardless of whether it was Vokey or Callaway.