Search this question and you will get a number. Replace your wedges every so many rounds. The number varies depending on who is selling.
We are not going to give you one, because we have not seen anything that would let us stand behind it. How fast a wedge wears depends on what you play off, how often you practice, whether you hit off mats, whether you clean the face, and how you strike it. Two golfers with the same wedge and the same number of rounds can be in completely different places.
So here is how to judge your own instead.
What actually wears
Two things, and only one of them matters much.
The face and its grooves. Repeated contact with sand and turf rounds off the edges of the grooves. Sharp edges grip the cover of the ball, rounded edges grip it less. That is the mechanism behind spin loss and it is real.
The finish. A black wedge like ours will show wear around the face and the leading edge, and it will start doing it early. That is cosmetic. It tells you the club has been used, not that it has stopped working. Our own warranty says this outright: normal wear, including groove and finish wear from play, is not covered, because it is not a fault.
If you take one thing from this article: finish wear is not a reason to replace a wedge. It is the most common reason people do.
How to check yours
Four things you can do in your garage in about two minutes.
Run a fingernail across the grooves, at right angles. On a fresh wedge your nail catches on each edge and the movement feels notched. On a worn one it slides. Do it on your newest wedge first so you have something to compare against, because the feel on its own is hard to judge without a reference.
Look at the wear pattern. Most golfers strike the ball in the same small area, and on a worn club that area is visibly polished compared to the rest of the face. If your grooves look crisp at the toe and smooth in the middle of your pattern, the middle is what you are actually playing with.
Look at the leading edge from the side. A leading edge that has been dragged through a lot of sand loses its sharpness and can develop small nicks. That changes how it enters the turf, which is what bounce is there to control.
Clean it first. A face packed with dried sand and grass fails every test above and then passes once it is washed. More wedges get replaced for being dirty than people would like to admit.
What worn wedges feel like on the course
The first place spin loss shows up is not the full shot. It is the partial shot out of anything wet or grassy.
A full 56 from the fairway keeps working for a long time, because you are generating enough speed to get spin from loft alone. The shots that go first are the ones where the grooves are doing the work: a half wedge from light rough, a pitch off a damp lie, anything where there is grass or water between the face and the ball.
The pattern to watch for is a ball that comes out fine and then does not stop. Same flight you expected, one or two extra bounces, releasing to the back of the green when it used to check. If that has crept in over a season on the same course, and it happens most on damp days, the grooves are a reasonable suspect.
When it is not the wedge
Worth ruling these out before spending money.
The ball. Spin comes from the cover as much as the club. Switching from a urethane ball to a cheaper surlyn one will drop your greenside spin and it will feel exactly like a worn wedge.
The lie. Grass between the face and the ball kills spin on a brand new club too. If it only happens out of rough, the club is probably fine.
The strike. Thin and fat contact both lose spin. If your misses have crept in at the same time as the spin loss, the club may be reporting on your swing rather than its own condition.
Which club you are asking. Expecting a 45 degree pitching wedge to check like a lob wedge is not a wear problem.
So when should you replace one
When you have done the checks, ruled out the ball and the lie, and you are still losing shots on the exact type of shot that depends on grooves.
That is the honest answer and it is less satisfying than a number. A golfer who practices four days a week off mats will get there far sooner than someone who plays twice a month off grass, and no schedule can tell the difference between them.
We sell wedges. It would be easier for us to tell you to replace them every season. We would rather you replaced one when it is actually worn, because a golfer who buys a club that did not need buying does not come back.