Cleveland golf CBX 2 wedge review – increase your accuracy

With some of the sharpest grooves on a wedge, the Cleveland CBX 2 delivers outrageous spin that can create stopping power on the greens and unreal height on shots from the fairway for soft landings that help with accuracy. A well-designed wedge that can help golfers across the board, the CBX 2 is a marvel of equipment design and one of the finest wedges we’ve ever tested. Get more facts in Cleveland golf CBX 2 wedge review.

Pros & Cons – Cleveland golf CBX 2 wedge

Pros

• Excellent all-round wedge
• Forgiving head is easier to hit than bladed wedge
• Confidence inspiring shape at address
• Very good value for money
• Surprisingly good spin rates
• Will suit almost all golfers

Cons

• May look a little chunky to elite players
• Not as much feel as a bladed wedge
• Only three grind options

Specifications – Cleveland golf CBX 2 wedge

Built for the majority of golfers who play game improvement equipment, the Cleveland CBX 2 Wedge provides tour-level spin and control for players looking to upgrade their short game. Get spin, control, and all the forgiveness you need with the new Cleveland CBX 2.

What is good in Cleveland golf CBX 2 wedge?

Hollow-Cavity Design

A hollow chamber near the heel and a heavy weight in the toe maximizes MOI and perimeter weighting for unprecedented short game forgiveness.

Dynamic Sole

Three different sole grinds, optimized by loft, deliver more versatility to execute any shot on the course.

Amazing Feel

Enhanced Feel Balancing Technology delivers a toe-bias center of gravity, while a Gelback TPU Insert reduces vibration. It all combines to deliver a pure feel at impact.

Rotex Face

Fourth Generation Rotex Face technology delivers our sharpest Tour Zip Grooves and most aggressive face milling for maximum spin and short game control.

Cleveland golf CBX 2 wedge review

Looks

Side by side with Cleveland’s blade-style RTX offering, the face on the CBX 2 is noticeably larger.  The sole is also significantly wider.

I think when it comes to golf equipment, most golfers are susceptible to a bit of vanity, whether they are eager to admit it or not.  By that token, it’s a breath of fresh air that these wedges don’t have a bunch of design elements that scream “CHECK OUT MY TECH FEATURES!”  The clubs have a clean, classic, and razor-sharp look.

Sound & Feel

The sound of impact is a crisp ‘tock.’  The feel is excellent.  Though not as buttery soft as a forged blade-style wedge, the feedback on strike location is evident in the way the ball comes off the club and rolls out on the green, and also in the hands to a greater degree than I expected from a cavity back wedge.  

Build & enginerring

The Cleveland CBX 2 wedge is based around making the short game as easy as possible by providing extra forgiveness to the amateur golfers, whilst still retaining the spin and control we all crave from the scoring clubs.

The idea is that this wedge is the perfect companion for golfers who use cavity back irons to make the switch to specialist wedges, and there are a couple of changes for this model when compared to the original CBX wedge.

Firstly, a new Hollow-Cavity design means that there is now an empty chamber near the heel and a heavy weight placed in the toe of the head. This setup is said to maximise Moment of Inertia (MOI) which provides more forgiveness, and Cleveland says that this results in 25% more shots being hit from the sweet spot.

This combines with the updated Feel Balancing Technology to create a toe-biased centre of gravity for the first time, to complement the natural tendencies of the amateur golfer, whilst a Gelback TPU Insert gives a crisp, soft feel.

There are now three different sole grinds on offer depending on which loft you are using, to give golfers greater versatility with each wedge to pull off the desired shot.

The 46-52° wedges feature a V-shaped sole which is said to get through the turf easier and is geared towards full shots, the 54-56° sand wedges have an S-shaped sole for extra help getting out of the sand or deep rough, and the 58-60° lob wedges have a C-shaped grind which allows for the face to be manipulated.

Finally, the Rotex groove design has been given an upgrade too. Three different layers are now combined to give you plenty of grip. First up is Rotex milling of the face, which adds friction between the grooves for added spin.

Laser milling makes the face even rougher to provide extra stopping power, and the Tour Zip grooves have been made even sharper and provide extra spin from the rough.

Cleveland Says…

Brian Schielke, Marketing Director at Cleveland Golf, commented:

The short game is critical to playing your best golf, and playing wedges designed for your game – and the shots you like to hit – is key. That’s why Cleveland CBX 2 wedges were created. They make the short game easier and more forgiving for the majority of golfers out there playing game-improvement equipment.

The Test

I took the new CBX 2 wedges down to my local club, Bramall Park. On that particular day there had been a lot of overnight rain which made the course very wet. This meant that the wedges were under pressure as I encountered some dodgy lies and my ball-striking had to be pretty precise. Great…

I also took the wedges down to The Range in Manchester to check that the numbers all added up and that they performed as expected on their GC2 launch monitor.

Cleveland CBX 2 Wedge on-field Review

Wedge play is probably the strongest part of my game, so when I first got my hands on the new CBX 2 Wedges along with Cleveland’s claims that you’d still get plenty of spin and control but also gain a little more forgiveness, I couldn’t wait to get out on the course and try them.

Looks-wise, it’s a really friendly footprint down by the ball. The head looks big without being too chunky and I actually think it’s quite a confidence-inspiring shape. I also couldn’t help but feel that the size and weight of the head made me feel confident that I could squeeze a couple of extra yards out if required removing fears of coming up short.

The wedges were, on the whole, very good good from the fairway and towards the green. I could definitely feel the added forgiveness helping me out on the wetter lies on the day where I was testing, with a good strong ball flight.

I was saved by the new Hollow-Cavity a couple of times on ‘toey’ strikes. Usually these would’ve come up short of the green with a normal bladed wedge, but with the CBX 2 I was able to cling to the front of the green and still have a birdie putt.

I am used to using a bladed wedge so I felt that there was a little loss of feel in comparison, although it was still soft and the noise was a little ‘clicky’ due to the head construction.

For a wedge which has plenty of weight towards the bottom and back of the club head, I was a little worried that the ball flight was going to be too high. However my session at The Range proved that the gap wedge actually flew a little lower than the bladed Callaway MD5 Jaws Wedge which I recently tested, whilst also spinning a little more too.

Around the greens, the CBX 2 had a good combination of versatility and forgiveness which allowed it to be adept at a range of shots. I played a couple of bump-and-runs with the 52 degree wedge which were really easy to pull off, and the lob wedge performed well out of the thicker rough as it was able to cut through the long grass without too much fuss.

One of the slight worries I did have prior to testing was that the lob wedge would feel a little one-dimensional, being a cavity-back design. But I was pleasantly surprised by the level of versatility that it afforded me.

On the 5th hole I pulled my approach shot left and was faced with a tricky chip over a bunker to a tucked pin, but this was no problem and I was able to make an up-and-down which looked like being a definite bogey.

On a similar note, it felt nice and easy to slide the blade under the ball in the bunkers with the 60 degree lob wedge.

The new C-Grind did a good job of allowing me to open up the face further to get plenty of height and make sure the ball stopped nice and quickly.

Cleveland golf CBX 2 wedge Performance review

One of my favorite parts about playing golf is being creative around the greens.  Deciding what route the ball ought to take to the hole is often a much more nuanced process from 10 yards than it is from 100.  I was able to open up the blade and pop it up in the air or hood the face and get it running quickly with equal ease.

On full shots, the CBX 2 gets the ball in the air in a hurry.  From the rough or from the fairway, well-struck shots launch very high.  A ball struck with less than total precision will get a couple more yards of carry than one struck with a blade-style wedge. 

I also noticed that while the turf conditions at some courses are more conducive to creating high spinning wedge shots than others, these wedges stuck or spun back just as much if not more than my gamers.  Fresh grooves always help with that, too, and the CBX 2 has a particularly beautiful, zippy-looking milling pattern. 

Finally, Cleveland has simplified their grind offerings with the CBX 2.  In the RTX-4, there are three sole options.  In the CBX 2, there is one sole per loft, optimized for the way that loft is predominantly used.

If you want to dig a little deeper into the performance metrics behind cavity back vs. blade wedge performance, check out the edition of Golf Myths Unplugged that Matt did with the folks at Club Champion earlier this year.

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