Cleveland RTX vs CBX Wedges: Which to Buy

Both are Cleveland wedges with Cleveland grooves, so this isn’t a quality question — it’s a fit question. The RTX 6 ZipCore is a tour blade built for feel and shot-making; the CBX Full-Face is a game-improvement, cavity-back wedge built to forgive. The right one depends almost entirely on how cleanly you strike your short shots.

Choose the RTX 6 if…

You strike your chips and pitches cleanly and you want to shape and flight them. The blade puts the mass behind the sweet spot for a soft, precise feel, the grooves are Cleveland’s sharpest, and the multiple grind options let you match the sole to your turf and technique. This is the wedge a good short game grows into — you can open the face, hit the flop, and spin one back.

Choose the CBX Full-Face if…

Your strike isn’t always centered, or you want a wedge that helps rather than punishes. The cavity-back design moves weight to the perimeter for forgiveness, the wide sole resists digging, and the full-face grooves grip on the open-face and toe-side contacts that come up around the green. You still get Cleveland spin; you just get it in a far more forgiving head.

The honest answer for most golfers

If you’re not sure which you are, you’re probably a CBX player. The number of amateurs whose short game is clean enough to need a blade is smaller than the number who buy one. The RTX rewards a skill you may not have yet; the CBX saves shots while you build it. When in doubt, forgiveness wins — and you can always graduate to a blade later. Both sit in our wedge roundup against the budget and specialist options.

The short answer

Quick picks

#	Product	Best for	Score	Price
01	Cleveland RTX 6 ZipCore Wedge The value tour wedge — ZipCore, UltiZip grooves and a soft feel at a price the current RTZ 2 doesn't come close to; the one to buy once you can strike your short shots cleanly and the discount is doing the arguing.	Tour spin and shot-making for less	7.4	$129.99Amazon
02	Cleveland CBX Full-Face 2 Wedge The forgiving wedge — a cavity-back, full-face design that flatters a less-than-perfect strike while still spinning like a Cleveland.	Higher handicaps who want a forgiving wedge	7.4	$159.99Amazon

#ad · Live prices from the Amazon Product API, as of October 17, 2026. Where we have no verified live price, we show none — we would rather leave a gap than print a number that has rotted.

In detail

The picks, in full

Tour spin and shot-making for less

Cleveland RTX 6 ZipCore Wedge

56° loft (this listing)Tour blade wedgeZipCore / UltiZip groovesMultiple grind options

7.4/10

The value tour wedge — ZipCore, UltiZip grooves and a soft feel at a price the current RTZ 2 doesn't come close to; the one to buy once you can strike your short shots cleanly and the discount is doing the arguing.

Forgiveness: 6
Distance: 7
Feel: 9
Playability: 9
Value: 6

Pros

Cleveland's sharpest, most durable grooves for maximum greenside spin — the reason to buy a dedicated wedge at all
A soft, precise feel and the shot-making range a good short game wants: open it, flight it, spin it
Sold in multiple grinds so you can match the sole to your turf and your swing

Cons

A tour-style blade is less forgiving on a fat or thin strike than a cavity-back wedge
Priced at the top of the wedge market — you're paying for the grooves and the grind options
Two generations old: Cleveland replaced the RTX line with the RTZ in January 2025 and the RTZ 2 in September 2026 (softer Z-Alloy steel, the 588 grind back, a full-face 'Adapt' grind), so this is the discounted older model, not Cleveland's current tour wedge

Skip this if…

…you chunk or thin your chips. A tour blade punishes a poor strike; if your short game is a work in progress, a game-improvement wedge like the CBX Full-Face or the Square Strike will save you more shots than tour grooves ever will.

$129.99View on Amazon

Price as of October 17, 2026. Prices change — Amazon's is the one that counts.

#ad · we may earn a commission from this link to Cleveland RTX 6 ZipCore Wedge

Higher handicaps who want a forgiving wedge

Cleveland CBX Full-Face 2 Wedge

58° loft (this listing)Cavity-back / hollow designFull-face groovesGame-improvement wedge

7.4/10

The forgiving wedge — a cavity-back, full-face design that flatters a less-than-perfect strike while still spinning like a Cleveland.

Forgiveness: 9
Distance: 7
Feel: 7
Playability: 7
Value: 7

Pros

Cavity-back, game-improvement construction is far kinder to an off-center strike than a tour blade
Full-face grooves grip on open-face and toe-side contacts — genuinely useful on flops and awkward lies
Cleveland grooves and a wide, forgiving sole that resists digging

Cons

Not as workable or as pure-feeling as the RTX blade for a skilled short game
The forgiveness comes from a chunkier head some better players don't like the look of

Skip this if…

…you're a clean ball-striker who wants to shape and flight wedges. The forgiving cavity-back does less of what a precise short game asks for — the RTX blade gives you more control and feel.

$159.99View on Amazon

Price as of October 17, 2026. Prices change — Amazon's is the one that counts.

#ad · we may earn a commission from this link to Cleveland CBX Full-Face 2 Wedge

How we ranked this

We don't run a testing lab — and we say so

We compiled published manufacturer specifications, official standards and aggregated owner reviews, computed the running costs the big test-labs leave out, and scored each pick against a published rubric. The scores are judgments from documented research — they are not lab measurements we took, because we don't have a lab and we're not going to pretend we do. You can check every number we publish.

Questions

Frequently asked

Is the Cleveland CBX or RTX more forgiving?

The CBX Full-Face, clearly. It's a cavity-back, game-improvement wedge with perimeter weighting and a wide sole that forgives off-center strikes. The RTX 6 is a tour blade — better feel and shot-making, less forgiveness.

Do you lose spin with the CBX compared to the RTX?

Both use Cleveland's groove technology, so greenside spin is close on a clean strike. The RTX blade edges it for a skilled player who flights and spins wedges on demand; for most golfers the CBX's forgiveness is worth more than the small spin difference.

Keep reading

Receipts

Sources

We do not run a testing lab, and we do not pretend to. Every spec number here comes from a manufacturer's published sheet or an official standard, cited above. Where we could not verify something, we say so on the page rather than quietly leaving it out. Read our full method.