Taylormade ATV Wedge Review

This past week Taylormade shipped their latest product, their ATV wedge, in what has been a massive product year for the company. Building upon the success of their enormously popular Rocketballz and R11s lines. Our Head Professional Chad Scott gives his take on this new wedge.


ATV Wedge

What Taylormade Says: Eliminate the need to choose multiple bounce angles. The ATV Wedge’s versatility comes from its unique shape and wider, all-terrain sole that is slightly convex (bowing inward instead of outward) with significant relief at the toe and heel. Wedges have traditionally been designed to specialize in only a couple types of shots, forcing a compromise in others. The new (All-Terrain Versatility) ATV Wedge has a radically advanced sole design to handle a multitude of shots and ideally interact with turf, rough and sand.

Features:
All-Terrain Versatility (ATV) is designed for six critical scoring shots: tight lies, rough, bunkers, flops, pitches and chips.
Engineered to offer the proper bounce for the specific type of shot being played.
New groove design with micro-texture that generates high spin within USGA rules.
Lamkin wedge grip extends farther for improved traction when choking down.
KBS Tour steel shaft delivers greater feel, control and accuracy.

ATV Wedge

First Impression: For myself it’s all about how a wedge looks, sits and it’s leading front edge. Taylormade has made a dramatic improvement with the ATV over their previous offerings. The shape is similar to the leaders in the wedge category with Titleist and Cleveland and the leading edge is square and sharp and not very rounded. This is due to multiple sole grinds that give the wedge it’s All Terrain Versatility name. For this review I was testing the carbon steel finish, a darker finish that I personally prefer as it limits glare in sunlight. The large sole is not visible at address and gives a nice clean look.

First Swings: The ATV wedge felt really solid and crisp with full swings and well balanced. It did feel a little “bottom heavy” and may be a by product of the large sole. For shorter shots and chips the feedback was outstanding and I felt like I could feel the ball and the face of the wedge didn’t give that jumpy feel some wedges are known for. The milled face provided standard spin rates and I didn’t feel I had increased spin with this wedge.

I was concerned with the back of the sole as the flange did get caught a couple of times on tuffs of grass as I was chipping. Something that players will have to be aware of. The extended Lamkin grip was nice as it allows more room to grip down on precision shots so you’re not gripping steel.

Pros: Sits pretty, leading edge is sharp and square, very solid feedback

Cons: Back of sole can get caught in grass, the multiple grind sole may not be for everybody.

Overall: Taylormade has definitely improved on their offering in a category that they are way behind. Was glad to see they shelved the removable face technology, as I thought it was a good idea but didn’t catch on with consumers. I do wish that they had another traditional wedge offering with loft and bounce options for those that may not like the ATV’s sole, but when PGA tour players are gaming this wedge and winning with it as Justin Rose has, who is to argue?

Give the ATV wedge a try in The Harvest Golf Shop and for $139 the price is comparable to Vokey and Cleveland.