Studio › Wear Ledger
Notes from the gauges, written up when there is enough data to bother
This is not a blog in the ordinary sense. Everything on it comes out of measurements taken during real sessions in our own bays, and nothing gets written until the sample is large enough to say something.
Dew, Flyers and the First Three Holes
A wet ball on a wet face does something quite specific and quite predictable. Here is what the numbers look like at seven in the morning, and what to do about your first three approach shots instead of guessing.
Read the note → May2026Where Spin Goes When the Face Is Wet
Six years of paired dry and damp readings from our wedge sessions, showing how far spin falls when moisture gets between the face and the ball, and why the drop is so much larger on a worn wedge than a new one.
Read the note → Mar2026Reading Turf Firmness Before You Choose a Bounce Angle
Bounce charts assume a firm course and a neutral player, and Louisville is neither for most of the year. A practical method for judging the ground you actually play, using nothing more than a divot and your own eyes.
Read the note → Feb2026Edge Radius: The Groove Number Nobody Checks
A groove can hold most of its depth and stop working anyway, because the sharp edge that does the cutting has rounded over. What edge radius is, how we measure it, and why depth alone is a misleading health check.
Read the note → Jan2026Stamped Bounce Is a Starting Number, Not a Measurement
The figure on the sole assumes a shaft square to the ground. Nobody delivers a wedge that way. Effective bounce — what the sole actually presents at impact — is usually three to five degrees away from the stamp.
Read the note → Nov2025How Many Range Balls a Groove Set Actually Survives
We have been logging groove depth against reported practice volume since 2019. The curve starts falling earlier and drops faster than the two-year rule of thumb suggests, and range balls do a disproportionate share of the damage.
Read the note →Where the numbers come from
Our own archive, and nothing else
Every figure quoted in these notes was measured on our gauges during a paid session. We do not republish manufacturer test data, we do not take sponsorship, and we do not cite studies we have not read. When a sample is small we say how small it is.
Client data is aggregated and anonymous. Individual sheets belong to the golfer who paid for them and are never shown to anyone else, including in these articles. Where a specific session is described, permission was asked first.
What gets written about
Three subjects, because those are the ones with data
- Wedge bounce selection. How to choose it for ground that is not the firm, neutral surface every chart assumes.
- Groove wear over time. Depth, edge radius, and how quickly both move under a realistic practice schedule.
- Spin loss in the wet. The condition most fittings never test and most Kentucky golf is played in before ten in the morning.