WE TRIED IT! Wilson Performance and Fitting Centre

By Michael Cooney

WELL golfers, the golf industry is flying since the Covid pandemic hit almost three years ago and as such indoor golf centres are becoming more and more relevant and popular especially when you are able to use technology like Trackman. 

This being the case, this month’s article is for the Wilson Performance and Fitting Centre at Golf Studio Indoor Centre.

Located at Mordialloc in the heartland of Melbourne’s famous sandbelt, Wilson Golf has built a brand-new performance and fitting centre and it’s a massive winner. Let’s take a dive into the fitting process. 

Firstly, I had never been to Golf Studio however I had heard great things and on arrival you can see why so many people are raving about the facility. 

Trackman units everywhere, one of the biggest Well Putt-Putting mats you could possibly see along with a bunker, pitching area and warm up area to get the body moving. 

Now to the fitting and products, I had the pleasure of meeting Callum from Wilson who took me for my fitting. To my pleasant surprise we started with the wedges and from experiences in the past it’s always the last area we have looked at when going for a full bag fit so I loved Wilson as a brand and Callum’s ideas were to start with the wedges. 

Now Wilson is a real winner here because Golf Studio has an indoor pitching and short-game area. It’s amazing to do fittings and I must admit I love short-game shots for tight lies so I was in golfers’ heaven. We ran through the different grinds that Wilson has and I loved their tour grind sole option and I like less bounce so when they arrive I will grind back a small amount of bounce. 

Using Trackman and new balls we were able to optimise the spin rate and then jumped into the bunker with the wedges. This is a great feature from Wilson as you are able to hit short-game shots within an indoor facility.

The irons: I must confess I have trialled the Wilson D9 irons in a previous month’s review so am I somewhat familiar with their products, however, each time I pick up a Wilson product I come away thinking I should be using this product and the same goes with the Wilson Staff blades. 

My current 7-iron carry distance is average 158m, however, the Wilson Staff Blade model increased that by 13 meters in carry. Initially I thought the lofts must have been stronger causing the increase in distance, however, they were the exact same lofts which blew my mind. 

To his credit, Callum gave me a slightly heavier shaft moving into a dynamic gold x100 and made the lie angle and extra degree flatter allowing me to optimise my ball flight, attain a tighter ball dispersion and get me an extra 13 metres which is huge for anyone.

From hitting the irons, we then proceeded to testing their utility iron which I loved. The irons we are going 4-iron to pitching wedge and the wedges we have gone 50°, 54°, 58° leaving another four clubs. One of those we have gone with is a three utility which is 21 degrees in loft, however, we may add a two utility at 18 degrees of loft. 

An important question Callum asked towards the beginning was where I play and how often. Now I don’t play as much as I’d like to but I said I play in Melbourne where it’s extremely windy so having an option of the two utility is a good option in winter and I will most likely take the gap wedge out. 

From this point we tried the driver and 3-wood which I really liked and we worked out the best shaft, head design and length of club. 

We optimised the ball flight which again I got better dispersion and five more metres with my driver and eight more metres with my 3-wood. 

In summary, the whole experience from walking in to the Golf Studio, Callum’s knowledge, the numbers on the Trackman and the performance product is a safe bet for all golfers to get down to Wilson and see what they have to offer and be blown away with the results. 

I loved the experience and loved the products. 

Happy golfing! 

Michael Cooney is a teaching professional at the PGA Centre for Learning and Performance at the Sandhurst Golf Club in Melbourne and is always on the hunt for the latest and greatest in golf products.