wishon

[eric2412]

since pro's have more options with clubs, and are less bound by contracts as we have seen in witb lately

why do we not see more wishon clubs appear in pro bags on tour

i have read for years from wishon about how big name clubs are all hype - and i get the difference with retail and tour van stuff

but nevertheless since the flood gates have opened up on pro's ability to really choose what they want to play with

i still don't see his clubs anywhere on tour as far as i see

(i do see jim mccleery do custom builds with wishon irons on his tube channel - he has a great channel and has a great attitude on club building)

 

 

 

[QuigleyDU]

Wishon good stuff but you will never see it in tour pros bags.

 

[pga43]

1st, because he doesn't pay a rep to be out on Tour every week to try to get even one pro to hit his stuff, much less put something play. I'd guess a pretty high percentage of Tour pros have no idea who he is.

 

Greg

[rblmp32]

This would be the correct answer.

[gvogel]

And, when a pro gets fit for a driver, he probably has 20 made with the same specs, and he hits all 20, and of those he finds 1 or 2 that agrees with him.

And then, yes, as the season goes on, he might tweak his driver with the assistance of the Tour staff.

Tom Wishon is not set up to do that. However, for the average guy, a good Wishon fitter can probably deliver a much better fit than buying off the rack.

but if you want to go to Club Champion or another, you can spend a whole lot more for the "experience" and the advertising budget of TM, Cally, Titleist or maybe Ping.

[JCAG]

Show me the Money is the answer.

[WristySwing]

This is probably 1/2 right. Look at Patrick Reed with his Grindworks irons or several of the tour guys using Artisan or National Custom product. They certainly don't have reps out there but they still find their way into bags, not a lot of course, but they are there. You even have people playing New Level on the Champions and Korn Ferry Tours. Eric definitely doesn't have a tour staff that I'm aware of but the product performs well and is getting noticed...but I would wager there are more people who are aware of Wishon than there are who are aware of New Level, Artisan, or National Custom, so I don't think its brand recognition either.

I think for your journeymen pros they are going to latch onto whoever is willing to pay them for the season. Your guys who are struggling to keep their tour card year-in year-out aren't going to care if they play Taylormade, Callaway, Ping, or Pro Select if the signing bonus and salary per year is big enough for them to get a house and be able to eat and sleep at as many tour stops as they want without worrying about where and when the next cheque is going to come. Certainly your big name stars like McIlroy and Koepka aren't chasing money and are chasing performance. Sure, the multi million dollar TM contract is a nice nest egg for Rory or Tiger but honestly, they could default their contracts today and never have to work a day in their lives again and they'd still never be worried about cash. With that in mind, a lot of these pros are performance driven, even if it doesn't seem like it. I have a feeling that they honestly do play the equipment because it is what works best for them. I don't hesitate for a second to think if you are good enough to be on tour you don't have every OEM scout through the alphabet flying you out to their performance centers or getting you 1 on 1 on the range to try the full range of their product, already bent to your specs and fit with your shaft of choice. So I think if someone like Wishon got into the hands of a pro and it worked, they would switch without question. BUT!!! read below. I think the honest answer, apart from pros playing what they did as a kid/recognize, is that the product just doesn't stack up. I'm as open minded as anyone. I've played everything under the sun. I have found that component products and second tier lines just don't seem to perform as well, pound for pound. I don't mean to say they are bad, because they aren't, but it's the same with everything. Why don't more people drive Suzuki cars? Why don't more people use an LG phone? It's simple, they make good products, but they just aren't as good as the main 7-10 brands for some little reason here or there, be it small or large. I cannot honestly say I have ever seen anyone talk about how good Wishon or Maltby is outside of the people who build them or older age brackets that most of the time (notice I said most), complain to anyone within earshot about how expensive clubs have become. I'm sure my sample size is small, but the people I see championing Wishon stuff heavily on a local golf forum or at the big box store I used to work at almost universally were the stingy, older crowd, who always focused moreso on the price and how "close" they were to Ping, Callaway, Taylormade, etc., but they cost so much less. There is always going to be an exception to the rule...and I'm sure a few of you can easily find examples of threads where a Wishon or Maltby head has numbers that are better than everything else out there. Cool, but in general, this is what I have seen.

[Nessism]

Wishon makes some great clubs. I'm sure that most pro's could grab a set and play up to their full potential after a brief adjustment period. I don't buy it that his stuff doesn't "measure up."

Alas though, what clubs a pro plays is primarily dependent on financial matters. And that includes on site tour support and sponsorship, so you can forget about seeing any Wishon clubs on tour.

As an aside, a playing partner has a couple of old Wishon 515 fairway woods in his bag that he just kills. The grips are literally falling off the things but he is afraid of messing with the clubs for fear of changing something for the worse. Personally, I want some 565MC irons, only the low bounce scares me. I wish Tom would boost up the bounce on his designs. That's just my personal gripe though.

[nova6868]

I agree with that, have looked at the 565MC irons several times - 5 degrees bounce in the pitching wedge? I'll be digging trenches with that thing. He makes his sand wedges 12 and his lob wedges 8-10, so I'm not sure why such low bounce on the short irons and PW. Maybe he will see this and make a post about it. I'm sure he has a reason.

The 929HS fairway woods and the 775HS hybrids have a great clean look to them. Even the new Cavity Black putters are cool designs and high MOI. Just wish they had a more "premium" look to them. I've been spoiled by milled putters.

[TKS]

I just finished reading Tom's latest book., get a copy when available to the gen pop. He's had plenty of designs played on the tours - P.Stewart, Verplank, Litzkie, Crenshaw. Just not his focus when he went out on his own. He's a designer for fitting - that's where his focus is. Maybe he'll jump on here. The Tour Pros know who he is. The OEMs know who he is. The foundries know who he is.

 

 

[chall92]

I agree with TKS’s post that his latest book is a great read with both a technical side and a walk down memory lane for Mr. Wishon. I believe that Mr. Wishon made a conscious effort to learn, develop, and teach as much as possible in the custom club fitting side of the industry. His latest book that I just finished along with his “Common Sense Clubfitting” are treasure troves of knowledge which one would believe was his true choice rather than to just make clubs to get tallies on tour.

[sui generis]

I, too, have just finished Cap'n Clubmaker. I've known Tom, off and on, for close to forty years. He was a club repair instructor at Golfworks in the early 80's. My diploma with Ralph Maltby's and Tom's signatures is on the wall of my shop. The first half of the book with Tom's stories is fascinating. He does know everybody and everybody in the business knows him. (565mc's in my bag these days.)

[TKS]

There was a comment on this thread about how the Wishon using crowd are the older guys that can grouse around about club cost and whatever. I think there maybe some truth to that. Some of the guys that find me through the Wishon site have been through the OEM circus of product life-cycle madness - marketing hype - false technologies. a whole measure of other bad info that is hurting the growth of the game and they're pi$$ed.

Wishon's message and designs resonate with them, and if they'll help me do my part - they can play a little better and have fun.

Anyway, if you play golf to look at yourself in the mirror - knock yourself out. Pat yourself on the back - maybe get a little botox. Congratulations you're in a Boy Band!

But if you play golf for fun and to see how good you can get - regardless on your skill level, find a fitter and coach that will listen and work with you. If you are not becoming a better person because you play the game of golf, you are completely missing the point.

[Nessism]

If you think Mcllroy, Koepka, and Woods all went to Nike because they were "chasing performance" then I've got a bridge to sell you...

[Mikeski]

I thought To semi-retired years ago and sold his company to a UK company?

[HSTNGolfer]

If you read Tom's description of building Payne Stewart's iron set (also Scott Verplank's), you will get an appreciation for how particular some of the top pros can be about their equipment. He has been there and done that. Maybe these days he just enjoys living in Durango, CO, and designing clubs for his network of custom fitters.

With regards to the quality and performance of his clubs, particularly the 575 and 565 forged irons, they are as good as any OEM forgings. He uses 1035 carbon steel and a 5 step forging process, so compared to the best OEM forgings it is simply a matter of your preference in terms of look and feel.

Before settling on building my own set of Wishon 575 MMC CBs, I literally tried out every major OEM player's cavity back, including Titleist 718 AP2 & CB, Ping i210, Callaway Apex Pro, Taylormade P770 & P760, Cobra King Forged CB, Mizuno MP18 SC & JPX900 Tour, Srixon 765, Honma 737Vn, PXG 0311T, Wilson Staff FG Tour V6, Ben Hogan PTX Pro.

The wonderful situation we find ourselves in is that there so many great choices available to golfers these days. Every single one of the clubs listed above was very good, yet for me I still preferred the feel of the Wishon 575.

I happen to enjoy building clubs as a hobby for myself and friends and will build them to tighter tolerances on swingweight (or MOI), lengths, total weight, loft/lie than mass produced OEM sets. My sets end up a lot less expensive than OEM sets with the same shafts and grips, but that is because my labour and workshop are essentially at no added cost. A custom fitter who does it for a living would need to charge an appropriate fee to cover their costs and make an income, so the custom sets would be priced comparable to off-the-shelf OEM sets.

 

 

[TKS]

He continues to design under his brand, however diamond golf international out of the UK markets and distributes Wishon.

I dont know if his brand is "bigger" in Europe, but there is a strong following, he has helped the European PGA with their fitting training requirements. Something the PGA of America doesn't want/have.

I actually get Wishon gear from London one day faster than I did when he was shipping from Durango!

[Thayneil]

Some great posts.no hype which is typical.of Wishon clubs .

You could build a set of 919 Driver 929 fairways 318 hybrids 565 irons and micro wedges which would be a match for anything out there.

I have been a fan of Toms since the 80s and played his clubs almost exclusively.

One great thing about Tom is that he will reply to your message and in depth.I never over do that but know if i need an answer from the designer Tom.will respond.

Of older models the 870 and 560.irons were superb and make a great combo set

 

[GeorgeHWB]

What is this new book people are referring to?

[chall92]

”Cap’n Clubmaker”

[WristySwing]

I know that. But at the same time, those players also won a heck of a lot of tournaments using Nike product. Nike was ahead of their time for a lot of club designs we see as standard today. I made a post about it in the recent Nike thread that documents this, if you are interested. I understand Nike also gets a lot of hate on here too, partially due to some of their unethical practices, partially the Tiger hate as many can't separate the man from a brand, etc., but the fact remains they still made some phenomenal golf clubs and had a team of designers and fit staff that is still heralded as second to none. So as much as the contract was lucrative, the performance, innovation, and tour support was also there. As another poster and I mentioned, that is huge. If they can have a support team who is going to work with them, no questions asked when they feel they need it, or can sleep soundly not having to worry about money, well, then why wouldn't they play that?

Back on topic, maybe I was a bit harsh in my criticism of why we don't see any Wishon on tour. I understand the man has a passion and is very good at what he does. As the OP mentioned, no, likely all of the reps know who he is, and a lot of the old school players will know who he is. I doubt though you could pull say Calum Hill (random dude from the top 125 and from the Euro Tour) and have him even attempt to bluff he knows who you're talking about. Again, I could be proven wrong but that's my inkling. I have my opinion on the stuff as I have tried it in the past and wasn't overly impressed, as I wasn't with Maltby product either. Could it be marketing? Maybe, but that's why there are 100 different OEMs to choose from. I can choose who I want to play because of any number of reasons. I'll leave it at that.

[Hawkeye77]

Other OEMs had plenty of "support teams" - Tiger to Nike? $40m as I recall, not even a doubt about that. Rory - $$$.

[TNGolfer8]

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but since Nike golf and Tom have been mentioned in this post, I thought I heard that they offered him a position similar to Director of Product design a while back, which he declined.

[HSTNGolfer]

I think that it was Titleist that offered Tom that position.

[WristySwing]

I fully admit money is a driving factor, and acknowledge that in my first post. It also happened to come with a very good club designer in Tom Stites and another builder/refiner in Mike Taylor. Nike was extremely innovative for their time. I'm saying that once you are established enough you can find ways to look at performance before running after the paycheque. Koepka, Fleetwood, Schwartzel, and Casey were all Nike players that are now free agents that play what they want, and feasibly, since they are not being paid by anyone except perhaps a small tee-up cheque by TM each week (if they even do that anymore), are driven by what works best for them. Tiger is using a one-off design that was designed by Mike Taylor and then produced by Taylormade.

The fact of the matter is, there are several less established brands out on tour that are getting play by very big names. Tiger had the PGR prototypes when he made his comeback, Patrick Reed and Jason Dufner both used National Custom, Bryson with Edel when he first came on tour, Patrick Reed with his Grindworks irons, Bernhard Langer with his Artisan irons, Patrick Reed is using Artisan wedges. Abraham Ancer is Muira and Artisan. The list goes on. The fact is that a good chunk of these players are not getting any sort of big $ endorsements to play these house brands just the same as Koepka is likely seeing virtually nothing from Mizuno to keep the 919s in the bag. The other fact is that that these players are playing and winning with these clubs just as easily as guys under full contracts are.

Correct me if I am wrong, but none of them are using Wishon...anywhere on tour. Again, this doesn't have anything to do with the quality of the clubs here. But I also really have to question the "well a lot of them would use Wishon if he could afford to pay people" argument that is being implied by some. That is hogwash as well. I just think as another person brought up, either he doesn't care and bats away any attempt to make clubs for guys on tour/refuses to send them stuff to test because he is busy/trying to build his brand's retail footprint first, OR the stuff does make it tour and it just doesn't cut it. It is really one of the two. You can't tell me that if Koepka got his hands on a driver that was statistically better than his SIM or irons that allowed him to hit all the shots he wanted to hit but also got him statistically closer to the hole with the same looks and feels as what he likes, he wouldn't bag them. As another person above me commented to me, "then I have a bridge to sell you", because the money he would make in tournament cash would far outweigh anything TM or Mizuno could chuck his way as "free agent" bonus cash. So I am going to tentatively lean towards option 1 (Wishon doesn't care) because I really don't want to slight the man's designs as I know he has forgotten in his sleep last night more than any of us will ever know.

[Nessism]

Tiger, Rory, and Brooks play small forged players irons. There is NOTHING innovative about that type of club. It's well known that Tiger in particular has some very specific elements that he wants in the way the club looks and the ball flight he desires, but putting a designer with him and working through the iterative process to get clubs in his hands that he likes is part of standard work for a tour department. Make a set of prototypes, tour player evaluates and requests a, b, c, changes, CAD designer goes back to the models and makes the changes then sends the model design to the manufacturing guys for creation in metal. Then the process starts again. Again, this is not innovation, it's simply daily life inside a tour department. And this doesn't even get into all the shaft elements of fitting. It takes a lot of work and money to support this type of activity.

Regarding Nike's woods, they were very average and almost none of their unique design concepts live today. This not to say that they suck, because they didn't, but the innovation they presented didn't stick so...

Bottom line is that Nike spent boat loads of money to bring big name players into the fold, coddle to their particular desires, and the investment never paid off. How in the world is a one man show like Wishon to compete? And does this demonstrate that Wishon's designs don't measure up? Is this really a question?

 

[driveandputtmachine]

Two things Tom doesn't have, and I would imagine has no want to chase them.

He doesn't pay players, and doesn't really move the volume to do it. He's not at the PGA Tour superstore, he is trying to make people better at golf.Tour presence - While money obviously plays a big part in the tour players deciding on who to use, so does support. The ability to have new wedges, short irons, irons, hybrids anything you could want or need for a course ready within minutes, well maybe more like an hour, You catch my drift here though, this is a big deal.For companies like National, artisan and others I am sure they have some sort of presence, or have an agreement with one of non branded club trailers for guys to get work done. Or either the player has an agreement with those non branded club trailers.

[WristySwing]

I didn't say Wishon had to compete. Your comment to me specifically was that if I thought Nike was solely about the money then you had a bridge to sell me. I pointed out that Nike had a great team of engineers and a very good club designer/builder that accompanied the money. Money isn't everything. Look at a lot of the PXG players that have completely lost their game chasing the money. Nike is probably the only example of players moving contracts and actually improving. Of course this a convoluted argument because you can't say it was definitely clubs, but you also can't definitely say it was player growth or swing improvement solely, either. Nike's main tour fitter is still extremely well known and has a large following in the US as his own one-man shop travelling around. Nike popularized the high MOI driver with their SQ Max, every OEM had a driver design that mimicked that the following year. They were one of the first hybrids on the market with the CPR. The CPR head design is still in use today by Cleveland and other "scoop" crown designs in hybrids. Nike was one of the first companies to inject resin/urethane into a player's iron (the VPC). Again, a playable forged iron was not a new concept by any means, but it certainly was well before PXG, P760, P790, Mavrik Pro, Cobra Forged Tec, and others by at least a couple of years, at least in a widely available head. While it certainly isn't in use today they were one of the first adjustable drivers on the market, and are the only ones to decouple face angle from loft completely. The closest has been Titleist but even they can't do it perfectly. Nike had a range of 8.5-12.5 in neutral, draw, and fade settings that actually did visibly square, close, or open the club head. Albeit, the adapter was heavy comparatively.

Back to your above post, you are changing the argument now to ask how is Tom supposed to compete against the money? That wasn't what you asked me and not what I was replying to. I have nothing against the man. I am just saying that IF tour players wanted to play his stuff, they 10000% could. Having said that, I don't see any on tour. I don't know what that means, specifically, as none of us have insight into the heads of the players or Tom's intentions. I am just stating the facts, and using brand agnostic players to support that.

[Nessism]

This is what you wrote in your first post as to why tour players aren't using Wishon products...I think the honest answer, apart from pros playing what they did as a kid/recognize, is that the product just doesn't stack up. 

Seems clear to me. You think Wishon products are inferior.

And to that point there have been numerous people responding in this thread refuting that and making it clear that Tom made a decision during his career to focus on club design and fitting, not to dedicate his career to working with tour players. You seem unable to grasp that and keep coming back to tour player this and OEM that. You are making an apples to oranges comparison. If you don't want to play Wishon that's fine. Everyone has their own desires. Saying his products are inferior as evidenced by the lack of tour players using them is a bad argument though.

 

As for Nike's innovation, you are not going to convince me so I'll just leave it at that. Any innovation they did present was on their retail side, not for their tour players so this is a disconnected argument anyway.

[WristySwing]

I also changed my tune in a further post as I was not aware that Tom had no desire to focus on tour stuff. So, let's just leave it at that, agree to disagree.