Ask MyGolfSpy: Wilson Golf

This Ask MyGolfSpy is a little different, in that we’re asking for your questions on a specific OEM, Wilson Golf.

Or, if you prefer, Wilson Staff.

We solicited questions from you on our social media feeds and, as always, you came up with some doozies. We couldn’t answer all of them (but we’ll throw out some on social, just for fun), but as you might expect, you had a lot of fundamental questions about Wilson’s past, present and future.

So here goes…

Q: I think about Wilson’s company strategy vs the major OEMs we think about. At some point, they lost all their ground. Was it just marketing or investments in technology or just their clubs didn’t look good or that their woods lineup was poor? Why did they fade? – @BigHippoZen

This is what you folks are most curious about. In one form or another, it was the most-asked question. There’s no simple answer for one simple reason: there’s no single thing, event, product or happenstance that you can identify as a turning point.

If you’re old enough to remember the Beatles breaking up, you’re old enough to remember that Wilson, along with MacGregor, Spalding, RAM and a few others, were the biggest names in golf. They made gorgeous forgings that all the Tour pros played, and they owned the market.

It’s here where we need to recognize just how much Karsten Solheim and PING (and, to a lesser extent, Tom Crow at COBRA and John Riley and Carl Ross at Lynx) permanently disrupted the golf equipment industry. Karsten gets most of the credit (Riley, Ross and Crow deserve some, too) for making forgiving, investment-cast irons a thing. By the mid-‘80s, forged iron sales were down 30 percent and wood sales were down nearly 40 percent.

The legacy brands, including Wilson, were slow on the uptake. PING, Lynx and COBRA were joined by TaylorMade, Callaway and Tommy Armour, and together they turned the golf equipment market upside down.

Wilson’s performance and quality had nothing to do with it. The Killer Whale was, by all accounts, an excellent driver for its day. But the Big Bertha line was getting bigger every other year, COBRA had its KING driver and TaylorMade was flexing its bubble-shafted muscles.

As Wilson’s market share bled during the ‘90s, so did its Tour sponsorship efforts. Paul Lawrie won the Open Championship in ’99 with Fat Shaft irons in his bag but Wilson wouldn’t cop another major until Padraig Harrington’s three wins in 2007-2008.

We’ve written on this subject before. You can read our old-but-still-pertinent three-part series on Wilson here. And you can read our 2020 update here.

And that’s a perfect segue into our next question …

Q: Why are people looking down on them? Wilson irons are and always have been up there with the best of them. – @Xafication

Social media, unfortunately, paints with a broad brush. I don’t think it’s a universal truth that everyone looks down on Wilson. People may overlook them but that’s not the same as looking down on them.

There’s an old saying in sales and marketing: Perception is reality. More accurately, your customers’ perception is your reality. We’ve already discussed why Wilson today isn’t what the Wilson of yesterday was. It took a long time for golf’s pecking order to change and nothing that happened with Wilson happened in a vacuum.

In golf, as in any industry, it’s easy to forget what business you’re really in. Are you in the business of selling what you make or are you in the business of making what your customers want to buy? There’s a difference.

By the ‘90s, the market had shifted. Historically, market shifts are never driven by market leaders. Disruptors drive market shifts. Karsten was king of the disruptors followed by Ely Callaway, Tom Crow and TaylorMade’s Mark King. It’s kind of the natural order of things.

Look at it this way. In the ‘50s, Elvis was King. But by 1964, it was all Beatlemania, all the time, Elvis was an afterthought and the King never reclaimed his throne. And the teenagers who bought up Elvis records in the ‘50s weren’t teenagers anymore. The new generation of teens loved the Fab Four. Elvis was yesterday’s news.

It’s the same thing, only different, with Wilson. At least three golfing generations have come of age in the Era of the Big Five. Callaway, TaylorMade, Titleist and PING are front and center while COBRA is head-table adjacent. Mizuno and PXG have their spots while everyone else is at the kids’ table.

Wilson, I would say, is looking to join Mizuno and PXG.

Q: What are their plans to continue to compete with the bigger-name club makers?
– @PureIronSpite

We took a peek under that particular tent a couple of weeks ago in our interview with Wilson Global Marketing Director Markus McCaine. But the big-picture answer might come as a surprise to you if you’re the least bit cynical.

It’s innovation.

You might not think of “innovation” when you think of Wilson. But understand that you don’t get to be a 110-year-old company without being innovative. Sometimes the innovation works and sometimes it doesn’t but Wilson is an innovation leader in every sport in which it participates. You may have scoffed at Driver vs Driver but you can’t argue it wasn’t original. And you may have thought the Triton was loud and the USGA kerfuffle was amusing but there hasn’t been a more adjustable and customizable driver introduced in the past 20 years.

While Wilson didn’t invent the player’s distance category for irons, it certainly has helped define it. Starting with the C300 Forged in 2018, Wilson player’s distance irons have finished no lower than fourth overall in our Most Wanted Testing. Wilson jumped on face-flexing technology early with Power Holes and it has leveraged being part of a multi-billion-dollar sporting goods empire by being one of the first to use AI in product development.

Don’t underestimate the power of Wilson’s 2024 lineup. The new Dynapower Forged irons are getting plenty of industry buzz, and the Staff Model Blades and CBs are drop-dead sexy. The Triad golf ball was a solid performer in the MyGolfSpy Ball Lab testing and the new Staff Model balls show promise.

Will all of this leapfrog Wilson Golf into instant Mizuno status or will it threaten the Big Five? Not right away. The status quo is the status quo for a reason. The machine resists change and shifts take a long time. Remember, Karsten et al started disrupting the golf equipment world in 1969 and it took until the mid-to-late ‘90s for the legacy OEMs to feel the hit.

McCaine’s new direction – targeting the young ball striker – is smart. That demographic doesn’t carry three decades of preconceived notions around and isn’t afraid of being different. They don’t necessarily want to play what their fathers, mothers, aunts or uncles played.

Q: What do they want to be? – @infogolfgearbox

In the short term, they’re not thinking of a return to the “glory years.” That’s unrealistic for several reasons. As part of Wilson Sporting Goods, Wilson Golf is a business unit. As a business unit, it has to grow profitably and responsibly. Given where they are in terms of market share and the relative strength of the Big Five, growing profitably and responsibly means growing slowly and steadily.

Ask anyone at Wilson and they’ll tell you flat out: “We’re an irons company.” Through all of Wilson’s ups and downs, it has consistently produced excellent irons and this year’s bumper crop is no different. We’ll see how MyGolfSpy Most Wanted testing shakes out but, in my limited personal testing, the Staff Model Blades, CBs and Dynapower Forged irons are next-level good.

Additionally, the Staff Model ZM wedges are a quantum leap over Wilson’s previous wedge offerings.

That’s a long-winded non-answer. What do they want to be? I’d say their ultimate goal is to be viewed on the same level as a Mizuno: a maker of high-quality, high-performing irons.

Q: Why are the drivers/irons so much cheaper than PING, Titleist, etc? Always played PING but am tempted to try Wilson. – @Reneildo

You’ve noticed that too, huh?  As sweet as Wilson’s 2024 irons lineup looks, I was surprised at the pricing.

In a good way.

The Staff Model Blades and CBs are $1,199.99 for a seven-piece set. That’s $200 less than comparable sets from Mizuno and Titleist and $300 less than the PING Blueprint and Callaway Apex lines.

Dynapower Forged pricing was even more startling. The Big Five’s player’s distance offerings are typically $1,200 to $1,400. The Wilson Dynapower Forged comes in at $999.99 with the KBS Tour Lite shaft.

And don’t even get us started on the value Wilson’s Infinite Putter line brings to the table.

McCaine told us a few weeks ago that Wilson is working to enhance the direct-to-consumer sales portal on its website. Seeing as how all the premium space at the big retailers is already occupied, it’s a smart move. As McCaine told us, Wilson is intentionally targeting the younger golfer and that golfer has few qualms about buying stuff online, even golf clubs.

That said, Wilson certainly isn’t forsaking traditional retail. There are still a lot of golfers who won’t buy unless they try and won’t buy unless they’re custom-fitted. Both are impossible without a brick-and-mortar presence.

Pricing is a double-edged sword. Complaining about price has become a blood sport for golfers. We hate high prices because they’re, well, high. But we also know deep down that a high price indicates high quality and performance, even though we may outwardly demean it.

Conversely, if something is lower-priced, it can’t possibly be as good as the higher-priced alternative. My wife will routinely buy the higher-priced alternative of anything. “Why take a chance?” she says. “Get the good one.” We all do it or at least think it.

The growing direct-to-consumer companies have carved out a solid and profitable niche but have yet to break that mindset. DTC is growing but traditional brick-and-mortar still rules. Wilson seems to be straddling the line. They still need that retail presence, but Guerilla Marketing 101 says that if you can’t find a level playing field at retail, find a different playing field that is level.

Q: They clearly have great irons, but their wood and hybrid products don’t seem to perform as well. Do they have a development plan or goals for their woods in both the short and long term? – @Billy5174

The broad brush of social media strikes again.

If you review our Most Wanted Testing, you’ll find a handful of solid- to excellent-performing Wilson metalwoods. Wilson Golf doesn’t dominate the medal stand like Callaway, PING, TaylorMade and COBRA but they can be sneaky good if you know where to look. If yards per dollar is a metric you care about, Wilson does bring some value.

The 2023 Wilson Dynapower is the reigning Most Wanted Fairway Wood, copping top honors in last year’s testing (and not for nothing, it’s the first fairway I haven’t hated since my MacGregor Tourney persimmon). The Dynapower hybrid finished fourth overall last year, just a couple of points from being tied for second.

Drivers, however, get the headlines, date the cheerleaders and drive the sales cycles. The Dynapower Carbon and Dynapower Titanium both performed well in pockets. The Carbon finished third overall in accuracy but it’s doubtful anyone will rush out to buy this year’s third-most accurate driver.

That said, Dynapower outperformed its predecessor, the D9 (which was a big step backward in performance compared to its predecessor, the D7). Wilson Golf has had some sneaky performers over the past decade but driver is a point of emphasis for the company.  

Q: Their putters always get such good reviews yet I hardly ever see them promoted.
– @mikewitchter

Don’t get me started on this one, Mike – and we need to set a date for another round at Pine Hills.

The Wilson Infinite putter lineup is solid from top to bottom. The Spider-styled Buckingham has been an outstanding performer for us since its release two years ago. The Staff Model putters, designed with input from the legendary Clay Long, are also excellent performers.

Why aren’t they promoted more? Again, Wilson positions itself as an irons company and that’s where its focus lies. The Odyssey, PING, Scotty, TaylorMade party is a hard one to crash. The pricing conundrum is also a factor. “How can this $130 Wilson Golf putter be better than a $400 Scotty Cameron?” The brain can’t comprehend what the eyeballs are seeing. Better to take the $400 safe bet than the $130 risk is how it often plays out. (Ask my wife.)

I’m anxious to see how Wilson Fit AI turns out for putters (not to mention wedges and metalwoods). It’s a fascinating technology that captures more than 100 swing characteristics and then leverages hundreds of thousands of swings to fit you into a club within five to 10 minutes. That gives the fitter an excellent starting point to add tweaks and expertise.

WilsonFit AI is available now for iron fittings. The long-range plan is to roll wedges, woods and putters into the system in the coming years. Given the current state of putter fitting, an AI tool such as this can do wonders to get golfers into the right flatstick.