Sub70 TAIII Wedges - 2023 Forum Review

[Derek Lusk]

Congratulations Testers. These look amazing. I am super excited to hear about these wedges. I am in the market for some.

[DonnieGolfs]

31 minutes ago, ZMendle10 said:

@DonnieGolfs seems to have the same thing going on a bit as well based on his last photo.

 

 

That I do, was chalking it up to getting a feel for the clubs still but I've been taking pictures after each practice session to get some data to trend. I'm usually slightly out on the toe, where the one spot by itself is my normal. But I was a lot more heel bias.

[CB Lobo 4 Life]

Played with the wedges in a little practice session this morning and wow. I have a lot to say...

[Madden B]

I hit some of these the other day at the course, my friend just picked them up. The weighting is different than my Vokeys, but I did like these a lot. Once I played with them for a bit I was able to generate a lot of spin with them and shots were checking up nicely. These are great wedges, they may be the next ones I get. 

[CB Lobo 4 Life]

14 hours ago, CB Lobo 4 Life said:

Played with the wedges in a little practice session this morning and wow. I have a lot to say...

Due to a heavy workload and starting a vacation with the fam tomorrow, I will not be able to add anything to my review this week. However, I am looking forward to a great first impression post to come!

[ZMendle10]

I have a tournament coming up at Architects this Sunday so I took my clubs over to Rutgers golf course for some tournament prep and put these wedges through their paces for about 90mins. I hit everything from full shots, to pitches, chipping, and sand shots. I was really able to put these wedges through their paces and I am glad I did. Sand shots were tough at first but once I got dialed I was very pleased. I will go into more detail with my first impressions so consider this more of a teaser post but so far these wedges are holding their own with the big test coming up on Sunday. 

[MaxEntropy]

Like my fellow testers, this is a bit of a teaser....

Just wrapped up 36 in the last two days. The 54* has been doing an outstanding job on shots around the green. The 58* has been ok, not really sure why - something I'll have to figure out as the test goes along. More details coming soon!

[MaxEntropy]

I just got back from Hilton Head, and played twice while I was down there. Overall I was very happy with the way I played (84 at Riverton Pointe with 3 penalties, 85 at Old South with another 3 penalties and a triple on 18). Driver was mostly very good, except when it wasn't. Short game was doing some pretty heavy lifting to keep things in check, thanks to these wedges.

[ZMendle10]

Finalizing initial impressions today. I should be posting them end of day today or early tomorrow morning

[ZMendle10]

First impressions are up after a week of testing and linked below. Really enjoying the wedges so far as I get used to them. Gonna start collecting Arccos data soon now that I’m more used to them and comfortable with them. 

 

[CB Lobo 4 Life]

Read all about it!

Update with First Impressions and Initial Testing has been added in!

I hope you all enjoy it and more to come here soon!

 

[MaxEntropy]

The weather this week has not cooperated with testing! I got my league round in Tuesday, but that was with some rain. These wedges seem to slotting in very nicely with my game - performing very close to my Cleveland's. Hope the weather will cooperate more this week.

[DonnieGolfs]

6 hours ago, MaxEntropy said:

The weather this week has not cooperated with testing! I got my league round in Tuesday, but that was with some rain. These wedges seem to slotting in very nicely with my game - performing very close to my Cleveland's. Hope the weather will cooperate more this week.

A lot of rain here too, Ill have a longer post tomorrow but I did some comparisons with the wet conditions. For the most part comparable to my ping stealth wedges but the rain had some slight differences Ive noticed.

[GolfSpy_APH]

I will be curious how these play in dewy wet mornings.

My pings were better than the mizunos I have, but the spin in dry is so much better with the mizunos. 

Think the spin in wet with the taIII holds it's own?

[cciciora13]

How is the durability holding up? I ordered some about a month ago and on my 58 noticed a significant nick in the center of the face- definitely don’t remember hitting a rock or anything lol

[DonnieGolfs]

Quote

How is the durability holding up? I ordered some about a month ago and on my 58 noticed a significant nick in the center of the face- definitely don’t remember hitting a rock or anything lol

@cciciora13Ive notcied some wear from the san work I was doing at my local course the other day. Nothing to surprising for a forged wedge. I am going to check my spin numbers this week as a comparison to my first session. I saw an average of 10,500 RPM from my 58. 

[DonnieGolfs]

8 hours ago, GolfSpy_APH said:

I will be curious how these play in dewy wet mornings.

My pings were better than the mizunos I have, but the spin in dry is so much better with the mizunos. 

Think the spin in wet with the taIII holds it's own?

I tested this out this past week with all the range, I had ping and never understood the difference other golfers talked about with rain and wedges. There is a difference, Im working on creative way to back it with some numbers at the range with another rain day in the forecast. Ill have the R10 and PRGR out for some data.

[MaxEntropy]

10 hours ago, GolfSpy_APH said:

I will be curious how these play in dewy wet mornings.

My pings were better than the mizunos I have, but the spin in dry is so much better with the mizunos. 

Think the spin in wet with the taIII holds it's own?

I feel like the wet performance a bit better than the Cleveland's? Really hard to say since the 6 rounds I've played since we got them have been at 5 different courses (with varying greens) and all but two have been damp/wet.

1 hour ago, DonnieGolfs said:

There is a difference, Im working on creative way to back it with some numbers

I plan to rent a bay at Golf Galaxy at some point to get some spin numbers - I also plan to take a squirt bottle to moisten the face of the club and see how it differs.

[ZMendle10]

On 7/3/2023 at 8:13 AM, cciciora13 said:

How is the durability holding up? I ordered some about a month ago and on my 58 noticed a significant nick in the center of the face- definitely don’t remember hitting a rock or anything lol

I have a nick on the sole of my 56 from bag chatter and can be seen here. 

Nothing that would effect the performance of the sole but something that should be noted. This however should be expected with forged wedges or clubs of any kind and won’t be held against them in my review moving forward. 

[ZMendle10]

Rust Alert!!

I spent Fourth of July weekend (Sat-Mon) down in seaside heights with my family and brought my clubs just in case. I put my clubs in the back shed and after a few days they really started to rust on me over the weekend. Photos were taken today at neshanic valley’s range with the first three being the 56* and the next three are of the 60*
 

60* Photos

I’m really liking the look in the bag and I haven’t seen any downsides in performance yet. 

[ZMendle10]

On 7/3/2023 at 4:03 AM, GolfSpy_APH said:

I will be curious how these play in dewy wet mornings.

My pings were better than the mizunos I have, but the spin in dry is so much better with the mizunos. 

Think the spin in wet with the taIII holds it's own?

I had a 6:20am tee time on Monday with my brother at Ceadar Creek Golf Course in Bayville NJ. The course was really wet on the front 9 and didn’t notice any slip in performance. The greens were soft so they were able to grab a bit but overall I was impressed by the performance of these wedges in the wet conditions. 

[ZMendle10]

Not sure if my fellow testers have discovered this or not but I find these wedges improving my short game through the concept of simplicity. Since I am testing a high bounce and a low bounce options i base the wedge to use off of how firm or soft the ground is. If its softer I go high bounce 56° and if its firmer ground I go low bounce 60°. Applying this to any time I pull one of these wedges has simplified the decision making and started to improve strokes gained in my short game. 

[CB Lobo 4 Life]

On 7/3/2023 at 5:13 AM, cciciora13 said:

How is the durability holding up? I ordered some about a month ago and on my 58 noticed a significant nick in the center of the face- definitely don’t remember hitting a rock or anything lol

I noticed a similar thing happen to me on the first day I tested the 58*. A noticed a decent-sized nick on the face after hitting some 70-yard shots. I was in the grass and the lie was not sandy or anything. However, I have not seen any impact on play with the wedge. In fact just yesterday on a testing run on some holes I spun a shot back 8 feet with my 58* from the same distance. 

[CB Lobo 4 Life]

With the craziness of the 4th holiday it has been a little difficult to get out and test, however, I will be getting out both today and tomorrow to test some full-length shots to see how the wedges perform in multiple ways. Specifically excited to see how far I can get them. 

[DonnieGolfs]

29 minutes ago, ZMendle10 said:

Not sure if my fellow testers have discovered this or not but I find these wedges improving my short game through the concept of simplicity. Since I am testing a high bounce and a low bounce options i base the wedge to use off of how firm or soft the ground is. If its softer I go high bounce 56° and if its firmer ground I go low bounce 60°. Applying this to any time I pull one of these wedges has simplified the decision making and started to improve strokes gained in my short game. 

I've essentially only been hitting my wedges since I've gotten them. I've definitely gotten better in my short game since I'm trying to test every type of scenario I may need them in. If I learn anything during this test it's that I need to practice more and probably more conscientious about how I structure my practice. I go into wedge work now with a pretty structured idea of what I'm doing that day and mix it up regularly. 

[ZMendle10]

11 minutes ago, DonnieGolfs said:

I've essentially only been hitting my wedges since I've gotten them. I've definitely gotten better in my short game since I'm trying to test every type of scenario I may need them in. If I learn anything during this test it's that I need to practice more and probably more conscientious about how I structure my practice. I go into wedge work now with a pretty structured idea of what I'm doing that day and mix it up regularly. 

It seems like for both of us testing has forced us to practice our wedges more which in turn makes us better with them. Didn't see that coming.

[MaxEntropy]

5 hours ago, ZMendle10 said:

Not sure if my fellow testers have discovered this or not but I find these wedges improving my short game through the concept of simplicity. Since I am testing a high bounce and a low bounce options i base the wedge to use off of how firm or soft the ground is. If its softer I go high bounce 56° and if its firmer ground I go low bounce 60°. Applying this to any time I pull one of these wedges has simplified the decision making and started to improve strokes gained in my short game. 

The whole reason I ordered the 54 in low bounce was for tight and firm lies. Like you, I am letting the lie at least partially dictate club choice and I feel like it is working out very well. According to Arccos, my strokes gained stat has decreased a bit, but I was on such a short game hot streak leading up to the testing, it is still an overall improvement over my historical game.

[MaxEntropy]

Got a fair amount of testing done today. The ground was damp after a line of rain rolled through. I dried the clubs after every shot, but left the balls damp. Just with the 54's I did a dozen shots each to a 10 yard chip from fairway, 20 yard chip from fairway, and 10 yard chip from the rough. I measured (with my feet) the distance of each shot from the hole to get an average. You'll have to read the final review to see the results. All balls in my shag bag were urethane, including ProV1's, ProV1x's, K-sigs, Chromesoft X LS's, etc. All kinds of different hardness, but at least all urethane.

Planning on getting back soon for 20 yards in the rough with the 54's and all four distance/lies combos with the 58's.

[MaxEntropy]

Oh yeah, one observation so far.... The face of the Cleveland's seemed hotter/springier when hit dead center. I don't know if that is necessarily a good thing since I don't always hit the center, just an observation.

[ZMendle10]

I took the TAIII's to a simulator on Friday and also brought along my SM8's. I intended to collect data with them but I did not have enough to compare 4 wedges but without giving too much away from my final review there is a clear and distinct difference between the TAIII's and the SM8's in a lot of different ways which caught me a bit off guard.