Wilson FG Tour M3 Driver OTR review

Hello everyone. I am here with my second review of equipment that I have bought for this season with hopes that it will help some of you with decisions whether it is to buy it, try it, or pass it. In this post I will be reviewing the new Wilson FG Tour M3 driver off the rack.

A little background about me. Although I do not have an official handicap, my golflogix app had me floating from 18-22 last season. My biggest struggle last year was getting off the tee box without a penalty or at least having a good second shot. Before moving to SC I would have considered my driving a good part of my game (Titleist 910 D2 OTR), but I wanted to play with new things once I moved here and bought a nike covert. It was ok, but not the same, then I bought the cleveland classic 310 and that has been awful for control wise. I am not blaming the club at all, I know my swing is not so consistent and I tend to come from OTT/cast and currently working to fix these issues. I have been loving my Wilsong FG Tour V2s since I bought them last year and won't be moving from those anytime soon (I hope haha), and so wanted to check out the new driver. I was going to do it right this time. Go to Edwin Watts, and get fit by the certified Wilson fitter and have one that is good for me. Well that fell through when EW went bankrupt and the new owners decided that the Charleston store was one of the stores closing (very dumb IMO but that's a different story). I called the regional rep in Columbia,SC to ask when we will have another, or if there was a good guy near us to get fit. There is kinda. The closest guy is in Beaufort about 2.5 hrs south of Charleston so not really going to happen with a wife and a daughter both of us working a lot. He then told me that they would hopefully have another authorized dealer/fitter here in the coming weeks. I said awesome and was going to wait, but then said oh what the heck I will just go in and see him after and play with this thing until then.

Sooooo today was my first round with it. Set the loft to 11.5 and had the heaviest (black) weight in the head. The driver plays 45.75 and with the heaviest weight it is listed at a d6 SW. Longer than I would like so I choked up about an inch or so. While I know some of the lower handicaps will probably ignore this review as I may not be up to their standards, but I do play with some lower HC players and so I am going to let them hit it as well to see what they think. here we go!

Looks:

From the get go I think this thing looks absolutely stunning in every way. I love the matte finish on the crown, and I think the alignment aid goes really well with the club and isn't distracting at all. The head shape is a classic pear shaped head which I find very appealing. Stock shaft is nothing to really write home about (Personally haven't ever been a huge fan of Aldila shafts. Just haven't found one I can get comfy with). At address it sits square and really gives me great confidence that this next swing is "the One!" haha. Overall I would give the looks of this driver an A

Feel & Sound:

Now feel is completely subjective, and I understand that. Also, as most know, sound and feel go hand in hand for most people. For some reason I don't think it is true for me. I am not saying that I am special abilities that make me an exception I just don't put the two together. The feel for this driver on my center strikes were fantastic. It wasn't quite as smooth as my old 910, but I felt it was much better than the covert (performance and tour) and the Classic 310. many of my misses today on the course were more towards the heel (which is not common for me, usually I miss towards the toe) and I could tell right away whether I hit the heel or the toe. Funny enough, I also felt whether it was low or high on the face and that isn't normal for me. Usually I can tell either high or low based on ball flight, but the crazy thing was ball flight didn't change too much unless I absolutely topped it (first swing while warming up on the range haha man I was wtf, that's not a nice first swing to a new piece of equipment). Hits in the center was like a gift! ball felt like it exploded off the face.

This is where the sound part comes in. With my drivers I do like to have a more muted thwack type sound. This is where I loved the 910. It sounded fantastic. The M3 has a different sound to it. It is not a high pitch tingy/baseball bat sound like my covert tour had, but it didn't have that muted sound either. It was a little loud, and off center hits let you know it with feel and sound. On center hits were not as loud but still made me take notice. This could be because it was a new driver and I have been used to my Classic for the past 4-5 months but who knows. Either way, was a bit loud and some may be put off by it but didn't bother me after a few holes. I could best explain it as a crack like a distance gun shot or when tress pop as the sap freezes haha. Sound would be between C+ and B-

Performance:

For me this is where the driver really shined.(because of this weird southern winter weather the past 2-3 weeks i haven't been able to play since Late January). Like I said earlier, you knew where you mis hit, but ball flight was not adversely affected by it (unless you really mis hit the ball). I tend to play with a fade and lately my swing has been son inconsistent that I have been dealing with bad push slices. Well first tee and what happened? I pushed the ball, felt myself come from the outside, and the ball went right, but didn't have the usual banana shape ball flight haha. I was pissed but stunned that i was able to find the ball in the woods and still hit my second. Since I haven't hit on launch monitor yet I cannot tell you whether it is a high spinning or low spinning head, but I think I read somewhere that it is supposed to be lower spinning? I didn't really notice any distance gains when compared to my Classic 310, but until I get fitted into a shaft I didn't expect to. I will say I think the stock shaft is too light for me. Even as a lower SS compared to the norm here (95-100), I felt it was a little soft feeling (it is their stiff offering in the RIP Penom 52g). That could be due to the heavier weight in the head though. I drop kicked two drives and I was still able to get good contact on the ball just went a bit shorter than usual (again could be due to course conditions). I know most are wondering, well who cares about some of this, what was the FIR percentage? I will say that it wasn't great. As I said my swing is still progressing and I had not played in a while. I will also say that the course I played at (Stono Ferry) does not have th biggest landing areas depending on what tees you are playing from. I did end up hitting 6 of 14 Fwys though. two misses OB on two tight holes that had the stakes within 15 feet of the fwy, 2 misses were just short (the drop kicks I mentioned), one into the woods on the first tee, 2 were just off the right edge (both of which my feet were in the fairway), and one went into a fwy bunker that I forgot was there when trying to cut a corner over some trees where the hole bends at almost a right angle. I will say though that hitting driver during my round seemed awesome. I didn't feel like I was struggling all day and actually thought I had hit more fairways than I had haha.

Performance is an A for me.

Overall, I really like this driver and I think many of you will as well if given the chance. I cannot wait when Wilson gets a new fitter here in Charleston so I can find a shaft that will make it the right stick for me. I already plan on getting either a wood and hybrid or two hybrids as well when my other clubs sell.

The Good: Feels great, performs better, and looks amazing. Price is great as well considering how much you pay for some of these OEM models.

The Bad: Sound may not be for everyone, some may love it. The adapter will most likely not be available for purchase right away according to a source from Wilson and only the dealers with have them available to them so the club techies or want to buy a few to try different shafts in the same session will either have to pay up (think nike covert adapters on ebay when it first came out) or go to the local dealer and see if they will place them on the shafts. Also, according to the website, there isn't a lot of shaft options from the custom center which is kinda crappy, but again the guy at Wilson I spoke to said that there will be a good number of shaft options for an upcharge.

Hopefully you enjoyed this review, I am still getting better writing these and I hope to continue to do so when I can afford to keep buying equipment haha. I will continue to update this as I keep playing. Thanks everyone and feel free to comment and discuss

Thanks for taking the time to do such a nice review! I love the Wilson Staff stuff, think it typically flies under the radar. Don't love the headcover green, though...

I agree about not a lot of people willing/being able to give this stuff a try. Biggest reason is that Wilson isn't in a whole lot of places to begin with although I saw that they tweeted about going back to being in GolfSmiths across the country. Not sure if that is a good thing or not, but at least they will be seen a bunch more.

I really like the head cover. That part of the head cover isn't actually green. Not sure why it came out that way (probably do to the lighting in my living room). It is actually grey/silver that matches the crown. The head cover really is quality and is making me think about using it instead of my Perry The platypus head cover haha

Great review! I have been wanting to see one here on the forum.

Liking this club, can't wait to see it in person.

That looks beautiful to me. Glad you commented on the sound. I bet it could be altered somewhat through the weight port on the sole though.

[quote name='heavybladed' timestamp='1393033321' post='8719326']
That looks beautiful to me. Glad you commented on the sound. I bet it could be altered somewhat through the weight port on the sole though.
[/quote]

Yes, I am sure if you wanted to add hot melt or cotton balls would help with the sound if you don't like it, but for me it is definitely growing on me haha.

The Wilson 2013-2014 lineup IMO is one of the nicest on the entire golf market. It's reasonably priced, they have the RIP phenom as a stock shaft, the black woods and hybrids are very appealing, and the FG tour and FG tour M3 irons are really really good looking players clubs

I mean it goes to show the effect marketing has on people.

I mean if Callaway had this same lineup we wouldn't stop hearing about it

Wilson should give a few golfwrx'ers a tour of their site too!

[quote name='MtlJeff' timestamp='1393094186' post='8722802']
The Wilson 2013-2014 lineup IMO is one of the nicest on the entire golf market. It's reasonably priced, they have the RIP phenom as a stock shaft, the black woods and hybrids are very appealing, and the FG tour and FG tour M3 irons are really really good looking players clubs

I mean it goes to show the effect marketing has on people.

I mean if Callaway had this same lineup we wouldn't stop hearing about it

Wilson should give a few golfwrx'ers a tour of their site too!
[/quote]


I agree. While I wouldn't want them to play the advertising game like Callaway or Taylormade, They also don't have the recognition in today's market like Titileist does to get away without more advertising.

And if they ever did a trip sign me up right away haha

Wilson have been making good stuff for years, but as has been mentioned they lack the marketing dollars.and street cred to be a genuine option for most. This isn't all bad though as it means for savvy shoppers they get top end quality for mid range price. Wilson drivers in particular have been underrated over the years. I got a second hand Smooth a few months ago and it has transformed my game. It looks, feels and performs as well as any driver I've ever owned. My fir has gone up heaps, and my cap has dropped from 9 to low 5 heading toward 4 since putting it in the bag. One thing I like is they put genuine after market shafts in their drivers standard.

I suspect some of the issues the OP had was because the driver may not have been suited to his standard. Tour models are usually aimed at single digit players.

I will agree that some of the issues I had was because I had not been fit for a shaft/loft/headweight combo, but to say it is because I am a higher handicap and it is not geared towards me is a bit silly. Most drivers these days can be used by absolutely anybody regardless of HC. It just depends on matching the head/shaft characteristics to the player's swing characteristics.

Of course there are drivers out there that are marketed for the high HC and forgiving, but if you read my review, I found this driver to be pretty forgiving as I said above that on several of my bad hits the drives still were in play and I still had shots to the green/able to advance. The only shots (3) that went OB/into trouble where I didn't have a playable shot were because those swings were very very bad and no driver could have helped with those.

I want to give this club a whirl but i don't have a place near me that carries Staff....total bummer.

Do what I did and just buy it off ebay haha. I was able to find it for 250 after shipping...... pretty nice right there

Although if you end up not liking it, then you most likely won't be able to get even half of what you paid for it due to lower demand.

A little update today.

I went to the range last night and today to work on a few things. I have been reading and watching videos from monte about leading with the roght elbow to keep me from early extension/casting the club which was setting me on that awesome out to in swing path haha. So working with my irons and for the first time started to feel what is was like to compress the ball and actually take a divot after contact. Felt absolutely amazing.

I got to the driver and attemted to do the same thing focusing on leading with the right elbow and not releasing until later in my downswing. Started to hit center of the face a lot more often and my off center hits were still within the groove lines. Working slow and then getting to my full speed swing. I am feeling so much more confident with my swing and I'm hoping I take it to the course tomorrow.

My depth perception is bad so since I wasn't able to physically walk to my ball, I can't honestly evaluate distance, but I can only speculate that since I was hitting center or near center of face the balls were going just as far if not father that's my old driver. Also shot shape was a lot more consistent with my more confident swing.

Feel wise I will still say that it feels almost effortless coming off the face of the club. Sound is again loud but I am not even noticing it anymore after like two hits. Forgiveness I will absolutely say that it is one of the most forgiving drivers I have played except for maybe the 910 d2.

Hopefully will have a great update tomorrow after my round and again on Thursday after my round.

[quote name='MtlJeff' timestamp='1393094186' post='8722802']
The Wilson 2013-2014 lineup IMO is one of the nicest on the entire golf market. It's reasonably priced, they have the RIP phenom as a stock shaft, the black woods and hybrids are very appealing, and the FG tour and FG tour M3 irons are really really good looking players clubs

I mean it goes to show the effect marketing has on people.

I mean if Callaway had this same lineup we wouldn't stop hearing about it

Wilson should give a few golfwrx'ers a tour of their site too!
[/quote]

I'd go, i only live 30 mins or so away from there headquarters

Demoed it yesterday at local course. Sound a little loud but not bad . Long, seemed forgiving with a nice boring trajectory. Not as high a flight as my D100 but overall seems to be a great driver!

[quote name='Papa Johick' timestamp='1393182712' post='8728684']
Do what I did and just buy it off ebay haha. I was able to find it for 250 after shipping...... pretty nice right there

Although if you end up not liking it, then you most likely won't be able to get even half of what you paid for it due to lower demand.
[/quote] Gobal had one and it sold very quickly at 229!!

Nice price wow

I have been using this for about 3 weeks now. My other driver is a 913D2. The Wilson is longer. Playing around with the weights/lofts. I am sure part of it is the lighter weight and longer shaft. The surprising thing is I normally don't care for drivers with this long of a shaft but I found it easy to control hitting the sweet spot very consistently. If you use a firm ball it is a tad loud but I can overlook this as long as it continues to perform.

[quote name='boggyman' timestamp='1393432757' post='8749736']
[quote name='Papa Johick' timestamp='1393182712' post='8728684']
Do what I did and just buy it off ebay haha. I was able to find it for 250 after shipping...... pretty nice right there

Although if you end up not liking it, then you most likely won't be able to get even half of what you paid for it due to lower demand.
[/quote] Gobal had one and it sold very quickly at 229!!
[/quote]

Hahaha, that was me! I'll do a write up when it comes and I can put some swings on it.

I was worried about the weight of the shaft, but the one for sale at Global has the RIP NL 60 which has the specs I was looking for. Awesome luck!

[quote name='TerpInTime' timestamp='1393515476' post='8757548']
[quote name='boggyman' timestamp='1393432757' post='8749736']
[quote name='Papa Johick' timestamp='1393182712' post='8728684']
Do what I did and just buy it off ebay haha. I was able to find it for 250 after shipping...... pretty nice right there

Although if you end up not liking it, then you most likely won't be able to get even half of what you paid for it due to lower demand.
[/quote] Gobal had one and it sold very quickly at 229!!
[/quote]

Hahaha, that was me! I'll do a write up when it comes and I can put some swings on it.

I was worried about the weight of the shaft, but the one for sale at Global has the RIP NL 60 which has the specs I was looking for. Awesome luck!
[/quote]Thats great! I'm going to put it in the bag real soon! Local course I frequent is a W/S dealer and I can get it for what I think is a sweet deal !!

Round today was ok. Scored a little higher than average but also putted horribly (37 putts with 5 3+ putts ughh). Driver did great. Ony had 2 penalties off the tee (a dead pull into a lake and a horrible slice just OB) I managed to hit 5 fairways today, but had 5 literally just off and 2 into bunkers (one was with a 5 iron that I didn't play enough left for my fade) consistency is gettin better and I am more and more confident with the club every time I pull it. I even pulled it for a hole that I always pull 3 iron and have a loong second shot. Hit driver and landed in the short stuff with a short iron to the green. Felt wonderful haha. Because of my better driving I hit 5 greens. Just am that I couldn't putt worth poop today. Had one good birdie chance with a straight uphill 12 footer but didn't give it enough and left it about 2 inches short. All in all I think it's safe to say that the driver is staying for a while. I know as my swing improves my fwys will go up as will my GIRs. Iron striking was much better after working all week on leading with the right elbow and waiting to release.

I am back.

The driver came in on Friday, got some range time with it Saturday.

Wow.

Hit about 20 drives with those silly plastic tees at the driving ranges, but I was blown away. Slight fade (my normal ball flight) bombs. About 250 carry even though it was high off the face because of those tees. I am in shock. This is the best of the bunch IMO when stock shafts are factored in.

Sets up beautifully. Love the finish on the crown. The adapter was hardly noticeable.

I've heard complaints about the sound of the head, but I didn't find it to be annoying. I guess some people care about the sound of their drivers. I only care if they are deep down the fairway.

Great swing weight as well. I could tell on my few mis-hits what I was doing wrong.

The obvious CON here is where are you going to demo this thing? I had to order mine blind, but felt comfortable with the specs. Many others like my self do not have a reasonable spot to demo Wilson's products.

I'll update when I can get on a course and launch monitor.

how does the NL feel? I was looking for one of those but couldn't pass up on the deal i got mine for haa

I love it. I play a Wilson Staff Fybrid 3 wood with a VTS Red 6 stiff in it. Love that shaft. The NL performs similar. Can't compare it to 50 gram shaft offering for the M3, but the shaft doesn't feel overly 'whippy' for my swing.

[quote name='TerpInTime' timestamp='1394461325' post='8839173']

The obvious CON here is where are you going to demo this thing? I had to order mine blind, but felt comfortable with the specs. Many others like my self do not have a reasonable spot to demo Wilson's products.

[/quote]



I hear ya. I don't think these new Wilson clubs are even available in Canada. Kinda too bad.

Pretty excited today as I will be getting my club back from a club maker here. I finally took it in to go have my Speeder 757 that I won in the contest here put in. Cannot wait to hit it and see how it compares.

Absolutely amazes me that W/S isn't a top 3 brand. They have name recognition, sell at good prices, and their stuff is killer. Maybe it can be blamed on not having the products in enough stores or too much name association with el cheapo Wilson branded stuff. Don't know. One thing I do know, I've never met someone that actually hit/played their clubs and had a bad thing to say about them.

All that said, this is one of the best looking drivers out there right now.

Hello. Been a bit since my last update in here. But I now have 15 rounds or so with my new driver and my overall fwy percentage is about 45% overall and trending upwards as my last 5 rounds I have seen a real improvement in my swing and fwy is 55% and avg distance has shot up from 235 overall to 250 in the past five rounds so I am getting a lot more consistent and better contact thus hitting hit farther. I finally put the speeder 757S in it about 10 rounds ago and that seemed to really take some spin off so I am hitting a little lower but seems to have similar rollout so I am guessing the launch/descent angles are better? Not sure. I am wishing I could find an extra sleeve on the cheap so I can test the stock shaft versus this one with my better swing. Would be interesting.

Edited for very bad grammar on my phone

Was browsing some websites today and found the FG Tour M3 Driver for $120 and matching 3 Wood for $80.....That's only $200 for the pair!

Is this still a great deal?