Great read from Louisville Golf about the Wilson Killer Whale driver.

[Smash Factors]

I was thinking back today about some of the first clubs I ever bought when I was a kid.

 

At my home course in the early 80's they had a square, wooden rack with a bunch of different drivers and irons hanging all around it. There was a few Ping's. Back then they were wood and black and shiny. The sole was held into place with 4 screws, the face was red and the hosel was wrapped in black thread. It was just a gorgeous looking club. My friends and I were always drooling over them because they were the hottest thing at the time and way more that what any of us could afford (A whopping $129 I believe).

 

I wanted a Ping more than anything. I didn't even care what kind of Ping it was as long as it said Ping somewhere on the club. And then my day finally came when the lady working in the pro shop saw me eyeballing a Ping Answer 2 propped up behind the counter. The conversation went something like this.

 

"What's that doin' there?" I asked.

"Someone left it on the course awhile back."

"Oh really? What are you gonna do with it?"

"Oh, I don't know. It's a pretty nice putter."

"It's a Ping, right."

"Sure is. You wanna buy it? I'll sell it to you."

"I'll have to ask my dad."

"How does a dollar sound?"

 

Boy, weren't those the good old days. I still have that putter.

 

But all that Ping madness got interrupted a few years later when this massive, behemoth of a driver hit the shelf. It was the Wilson Killer Whale. There was some other metal woods around at the time, but not like this. It was the largest golf thing I had ever seen in my life. Everyone in the clubhouse was picking it up and setting up to it. It was so big, it was kinda hard to imagine yourself actually golfing with it. It was the only one in the shop and for some reason it sat for months before selling.

 

So today, I was wondering what year this club came out. I found this read from Louisville Golf that talks about Faldo, Payne and the Whale. Just had to share it.

 

https://louisvillegolf.com/blogs/blog/the-wilson-whale/

 

"

We did a lot of work for Wilson Golf in the 1980’s. In addition to making their Pro Line Staff clubs, we were also making up to 800 clubs per day for other Wilson brands. Our primary contact with Wilson was a gentleman named Larry Bobka. He was a plus 2 handicap and handled the pro line of golf clubs for Wilson. Larry told some interesting stories about his dealings with a few of the tour pros.

 

One story was when Wilson signed Nick Faldo to play their Staff clubs. Nick had previously played Mizuno equipment.  Wilson Staff players were required to play Wilson clubs and the company had a room set up with their finest equipment, ranging from the current models to some of the vintage Staff irons. Nick couldn’t find a single club in the room to his liking. They showed him club after club, model after model, but he didn’t like any of them. They eventually went back into the factory where they had one of the iron polishers grind on the clubs following Nick’s instructions. What they ended up with was an iron that looked just like a Mizuno. Nick was a tough guy to fit.

 

Shortly after that, Wilson signed Payne Stewart. After the experience with Faldo, everyone was anxious about how the fitting session would go with Payne. They take Payne into the room and ask him what type of clubs he would like to play. Payne walks over to a set of irons and says, “ these will do”. Larry and the Wilson guys are taken aback. They’ve never had a tour pro accept equipment so easily. They thought this is going to be a piece of cake.

 

Things didn’t go so smoothly when selecting woods. The driver that Payne chose to play was the original Wilson Whale. This was a very large head that was made from wood. It was actually a model that was meant for the Wilson commercial grade line and was never intended to be a pro line club. Wilson tried to explain this to Payne, but he didn’t want to hear it. He wanted to play this big headed driver and Wilson finally conceded.

 

The team at the Louisville Golf would closely follow Payne’s progress on the tour. We were making all the Whale clubs for Wilson, and if Payne won a tournament it meant more orders and more work for them. The Louisville Golf office staff would look through the ads in the Golf Magazines to see how Wilson would advertise the Whale. We never found a single ad for the Whale driver. There would be an ad congratulating Payne Stewart for winning with the Fire Stick Graphite shaft, which was the shaft in his driver. Or there was an ad congratulating Payne for his win with the Wilson Ultra irons, but never a Whale driver. We couldn’t believe it. What was going on?

 

We asked Larry, our Wilson contact, why they weren’t promoting the Whale driver. Larry said there was some internal friction in the company concerning the Whale driver. Most products are developed by the Research & Development division and then presented to the Sales & Marketing people. The Whale driver was developed by a group of Sales guys who frequented a bar or pub named the Whale in River Grove where the home office of Wilson was located. They even stamped the same image of a whale that was the logo of the bar on the sole plate of the head. As long as this was a commercial grade club like it was intended, everything was fine. But when Payne Stewart selected the Whale for his driver, it moved it up to the Pro Line category. And for whatever reason the marketing people would not support the club. We could only imagine how many Whales they could have sold with marketing support.

 

I think Wilson missed a huge opportunity with the Whale driver. It was the first oversize driver on the market at a whopping 250 ccs. It was introduced in 1987, four years before the introduction of the Big Bertha driver, which had a volume of 190 ccs. One of the most popular players on tour was playing it, and actually won the 1989 PGA Championship with the Whale Driver. Wilson simply refused to promoted the club.

 

After the then unknown John Daly won the 1991 PGA Championship, he was signed an endorsement deal with Wilson. Daly had played with a driver made from a plastic material called Lauramid. The people at Wilson wanted to promote a driver made from Lauramid trying to make the connection between the long hitting Daly and the Lauramid material. The Big Bertha driver was successfully introduced the same year and large headed drivers where the rage in the golf community.

 

As a result, Wilson asked us to make a Whale driver out of the Lauramid material. This was an impossible task. The original Whale was made from Maple wood that was laminated in thin veneer sheets to give it strength. It was necessary to make the club from this material to keep it light enough to be useable for a golf head. The Lauramid material was very dense and heavy. Anything larger than a small shallow faced driver would be too heavy. They had us jumping through hoops trying to find a way to make the driver large enough while making it light.  It couldn’t be done.

 

Finally we received a call from Wilson telling us to abandon the Lauramid project. They had developed a new large head called the Killer Whale. It was a large head made from aluminum that John Daly was going to play. The writing was on the wall for us….we weren’t going to be making anymore wooden whales for Wilson."

Edited July 25, 2021 by Smash Factors

[aenemated]

Aw man, reading that brings back some serious memories. Saved up my allowance for like 6 months or something to get a Killer Whale and when I finally did, it was like my most prized possession. 

[Foozle]

10 hours ago, Smash Factors said:

I was thinking back today about some of the first clubs I ever bought when I was a kid.

 

At my home course in the early 80's they had a square, wooden rack with a bunch of different drivers and irons hanging all around it. There was a few Ping's. Back then they were wood and black and shiny. The sole was held into place with 4 screws, the face was red and the hosel was wrapped in black thread. It was just a gorgeous looking club. My friends and I were always drooling over them because they were the hottest thing at the time and way more that what any of us could afford (A whopping $129 I believe).

 

I wanted a Ping more than anything. I didn't even care what kind of Ping it was as long as it said Ping somewhere on the club. And then my day finally came when the lady working in the pro shop saw me eyeballing a Ping Answer 2 propped up behind the counter. The conversation went something like this.

 

"What's that doin' there?" I asked.

"Someone left it on the course awhile back."

"Oh really? What are you gonna do with it?"

"Oh, I don't know. It's a pretty nice putter."

"It's a Ping, right."

"Sure is. You wanna buy it? I'll sell it to you."

"I'll have to ask my dad."

"How does a dollar sound?"

 

Boy, weren't those the good old days. I still have that putter.

 

But all that Ping madness got interrupted a few years later when this massive, behemoth of a driver hit the shelf. It was the Wilson Killer Whale. There was some other metal woods around at the time, but not like this. It was the largest golf thing I had ever seen in my life. Everyone in the clubhouse was picking it up and setting up to it. It was so big, it was kinda hard to imagine yourself actually golfing with it. It was the only one in the shop and for some reason it sat for months before selling.

 

So today, I was wondering what year this club came out. I found this read from Louisville Golf that talks about Faldo, Payne and the Whale. Just had to share it.

 

https://louisvillegolf.com/blogs/blog/the-wilson-whale/

 

"

We did a lot of work for Wilson Golf in the 1980’s. In addition to making their Pro Line Staff clubs, we were also making up to 800 clubs per day for other Wilson brands. Our primary contact with Wilson was a gentleman named Larry Bobka. He was a plus 2 handicap and handled the pro line of golf clubs for Wilson. Larry told some interesting stories about his dealings with a few of the tour pros.

 

One story was when Wilson signed Nick Faldo to play their Staff clubs. Nick had previously played Mizuno equipment.  Wilson Staff players were required to play Wilson clubs and the company had a room set up with their finest equipment, ranging from the current models to some of the vintage Staff irons. Nick couldn’t find a single club in the room to his liking. They showed him club after club, model after model, but he didn’t like any of them. They eventually went back into the factory where they had one of the iron polishers grind on the clubs following Nick’s instructions. What they ended up with was an iron that looked just like a Mizuno. Nick was a tough guy to fit.

 

Shortly after that, Wilson signed Payne Stewart. After the experience with Faldo, everyone was anxious about how the fitting session would go with Payne. They take Payne into the room and ask him what type of clubs he would like to play. Payne walks over to a set of irons and says, “ these will do”. Larry and the Wilson guys are taken aback. They’ve never had a tour pro accept equipment so easily. They thought this is going to be a piece of cake.

 

Things didn’t go so smoothly when selecting woods. The driver that Payne chose to play was the original Wilson Whale. This was a very large head that was made from wood. It was actually a model that was meant for the Wilson commercial grade line and was never intended to be a pro line club. Wilson tried to explain this to Payne, but he didn’t want to hear it. He wanted to play this big headed driver and Wilson finally conceded.

 

The team at the Louisville Golf would closely follow Payne’s progress on the tour. We were making all the Whale clubs for Wilson, and if Payne won a tournament it meant more orders and more work for them. The Louisville Golf office staff would look through the ads in the Golf Magazines to see how Wilson would advertise the Whale. We never found a single ad for the Whale driver. There would be an ad congratulating Payne Stewart for winning with the Fire Stick Graphite shaft, which was the shaft in his driver. Or there was an ad congratulating Payne for his win with the Wilson Ultra irons, but never a Whale driver. We couldn’t believe it. What was going on?

 

We asked Larry, our Wilson contact, why they weren’t promoting the Whale driver. Larry said there was some internal friction in the company concerning the Whale driver. Most products are developed by the Research & Development division and then presented to the Sales & Marketing people. The Whale driver was developed by a group of Sales guys who frequented a bar or pub named the Whale in River Grove where the home office of Wilson was located. They even stamped the same image of a whale that was the logo of the bar on the sole plate of the head. As long as this was a commercial grade club like it was intended, everything was fine. But when Payne Stewart selected the Whale for his driver, it moved it up to the Pro Line category. And for whatever reason the marketing people would not support the club. We could only imagine how many Whales they could have sold with marketing support.

 

I think Wilson missed a huge opportunity with the Whale driver. It was the first oversize driver on the market at a whopping 250 ccs. It was introduced in 1987, four years before the introduction of the Big Bertha driver, which had a volume of 190 ccs. One of the most popular players on tour was playing it, and actually won the 1989 PGA Championship with the Whale Driver. Wilson simply refused to promoted the club.

 

After the then unknown John Daly won the 1991 PGA Championship, he was signed an endorsement deal with Wilson. Daly had played with a driver made from a plastic material called Lauramid. The people at Wilson wanted to promote a driver made from Lauramid trying to make the connection between the long hitting Daly and the Lauramid material. The Big Bertha driver was successfully introduced the same year and large headed drivers where the rage in the golf community.

 

As a result, Wilson asked us to make a Whale driver out of the Lauramid material. This was an impossible task. The original Whale was made from Maple wood that was laminated in thin veneer sheets to give it strength. It was necessary to make the club from this material to keep it light enough to be useable for a golf head. The Lauramid material was very dense and heavy. Anything larger than a small shallow faced driver would be too heavy. They had us jumping through hoops trying to find a way to make the driver large enough while making it light.  It couldn’t be done.

 

Finally we received a call from Wilson telling us to abandon the Lauramid project. They had developed a new large head called the Killer Whale. It was a large head made from aluminum that John Daly was going to play. The writing was on the wall for us….we weren’t going to be making anymore wooden whales for Wilson."

Great memories!

My golf partner had a Whale - laminated - and used it to great effect. I could do nothing with it! Look all wrong due to its enormous size!

I would not have put that as far back as 1987 but guess it might have been....

One came up here in the UK on e Bay recently and went for big money. £300  or thereabouts.

You also remind me of a young guy who turned up for an open competition at a near by club. He obviously modelled himself on John Daly and took practice swings with such an exaggerated over swing that he caught everyone's attention and some degree of amusement. He very neatly touched the ball on the tee at the top of his swing. Closer it turned out than at the bottom on most attempts! 🤣

He had a solid headed driver. Not sure if it would have been lauramid but I remember it as white marble effect. He stood up on the first tee, took a tremendous thrash at the ball....he didn't miss the ball but did miss the golf course and by a considerable margin!🤣

I gather he continued to bombard his way round the course and the surrounding neighbourhood and didn't feature on the leader board at the end......

Happy days!

[dlygrisse]

I played the Wood Bros. Corker for a bit, same concept as the Whale. 

[Smash Factors]

12 hours ago, aenemated said:

Aw man, reading that brings back some serious memories. Saved up my allowance for like 6 months or something to get a Killer Whale and when I finally did, it was like my most prized possession. 

 

That's how I was with that Ping Anser 2. I kept it near my bed when I slept.

Then in 1991 the 1st generation Big Bertha came out and I had to have it. I was ticked pink for months having that thing in the bag. I was 20 at the time and crushing the ball further than anyone. There was only one guy in our circle who could out-drive me. I don't remember what happened to it though. It's somehow gone. I took it to Hawaii in 1994. Pretty sure it came back to the states with me in 2003. I might have sold it.

[Smash Factors]

22 hours ago, Foozle said:

My golf partner had a Whale - laminated - and used it to great effect. I could do nothing with it! Look all wrong due to its enormous size! I would not have put that as far back as 1987 but guess it might have been....

 

I'm pretty sure a lot of people thought the Whale was a gimmick that would eventually go away. Ping was just too innovative at the time and I think most everyone thought that Persimmon was here to stay.

 

I guess Payne had won the 89' PGA with the original Whale driver, not the Killer Whale. Then Daly won the 91' PGA with the Lauramid driver. Later that year, Wilson made The Killer Whale and then Callaway must have quickly released the Big Bertha. After that, everyone switched to aluminum.

 

It's funny because my memory of these clubs is just so foggy. I thought for sure that I bought my Big Bertha in 85' or 86' and that I played it throughout high school. For some reason I thought that I had mowed lawns and saved money for it, but I didn't. When I found out that Callaway didn't release that club until 1991, I was scratching my head thinking that the internet simply must be wrong. But it's not, and I guess I bought that club after high school when I had a job on the Seattle waterfront.

 

Edit: Callaway must have released the Big Bertha near to the beginning of April 1991 because PGA Pro Mark Brooks won the Greater Greensboro Open on April 28, 1991 with the driver.

Edited July 26, 2021 by Smash Factors

[dan360]

Good read.   Explains quite a bit of why Wilson fell from grace, and also how much marketing drives it.

[Smash Factors]

43 minutes ago, dan360 said:

Good read.   Explains quite a bit of why Wilson fell from grace, and also how much marketing drives it.

 

True.

 

We all know how it is with Wilson. They have the Staff line of clubs for pros and then everything else below it is basically cheap, low performance product that sells at Walmart, Kmart, etc.

 

They were probably afraid that people would think there must be something wrong with Staff drivers, or that the low-end drivers are somehow better than Staff. People would be questioning why Payne isn't using a Staff equipment when that's who he was sponsored by. They might even had questioned Payne himself for making such an odd decision which could end up inadvertently making Wilson look bad.

 

But down the road, Payne ended up giving everyone a reason to question his decision making anyway. He gave up his sponsorship with Staff and signed a big contract with Spalding. That's like giving a Nascar driver a go-cart. The sponsorship was $8 million, but all that money doesn't make a person play better golf, and he didn't. The Spalding / Top Flight clubs were basically game improvement irons by todays standards with large heads and a big offset. Not to mention he had to play Top Flight balls! His tour ranking sank outside the top 100 and he was probably at risk of losing his tour card.

[dan360]

15 minutes ago, Smash Factors said:

 

True.

 

We all know how it is with Wilson. They have the Staff line of clubs for pros and then everything else below it is basically cheap, low performance product that sells at Walmart, Kmart, etc.

 

They were probably afraid that people would think there must be something wrong with Staff drivers, or that the low-end drivers are somehow better than Staff. People would be questioning why Payne isn't using a Staff equipment when that's who he was sponsored by. They might even had questioned Payne himself for making such an odd decision which could end up inadvertently making Wilson look bad.

 

But down the road, Payne ended up giving everyone a reason to question his decision making anyway. He gave up his sponsorship with Staff and signed a big contract with Spalding. That's like giving a Nascar driver a go-cart. The sponsorship was $8 million, but all that money doesn't make a person play better golf, and he didn't. The Spalding / Top Flight clubs were basically game improvement irons by todays standards with large heads and a big offset. Not to mention he had to play Top Flight balls! His tour ranking sank outside the top 100 and he was probably at risk of losing his tour card.

I'd argue in 1989-1991 all most buyers saw was the headcover.  Sort of similar even today, and a good reason TM went with the white woods....(tattle tale'd on the headcovers, bag, shirt, hat, and such)

 

 

My signature line here for a good number of years was Payne's direct response to the Top Flite fiasco:

 

"For one thing, when you're playing as well as I was at the time, you think you can play with anything. That isn't true, of course, but I didn't know it then." 

 

 

[aenemated]

7 hours ago, Smash Factors said:

 

That's how I was with that Ping Anser 2. I kept it near my bed when I slept.

Then in 1991 the 1st generation Big Bertha came out and I had to have it. I was ticked pink for months having that thing in the bag. I was 20 at the time and crushing the ball further than anyone. There was only one guy in our circle who could out-drive me. I don't remember what happened to it though. It's somehow gone. I took it to Hawaii in 1994. Pretty sure it came back to the states with me in 2003. I might have sold it.

 

Yeah, I dunno what happened to my old Bertha either. I've still got a good number of my clubs from those days but that one seems to have drifted away at some point. 

[mocokid]

On 7/25/2021 at 10:34 PM, Smash Factors said:

 

True.

 

We all know how it is with Wilson. They have the Staff line of clubs for pros and then everything else below it is basically cheap, low performance product that sells at Walmart, Kmart, etc.

 

They were probably afraid that people would think there must be something wrong with Staff drivers, or that the low-end drivers are somehow better than Staff. People would be questioning why Payne isn't using a Staff equipment when that's who he was sponsored by. They might even had questioned Payne himself for making such an odd decision which could end up inadvertently making Wilson look bad.

 

But down the road, Payne ended up giving everyone a reason to question his decision making anyway. He gave up his sponsorship with Staff and signed a big contract with Spalding. That's like giving a Nascar driver a go-cart. The sponsorship was $8 million, but all that money doesn't make a person play better golf, and he didn't. The Spalding / Top Flight clubs were basically game improvement irons by todays standards with large heads and a big offset. Not to mention he had to play Top Flight balls! His tour ranking sank outside the top 100 and he was probably at risk of losing his tour card.

Payne can be seen in the last rounds of us opens using the whale, early 90s. (Usga channel on Roku).  He's got a top flite bag in 1998 when he loses a 5 shot lead.  In 1999 it's lynx, one of the all time great wins. 

[Smash Factors]

15 hours ago, mocokid said:

In 1999 it's lynx, one of the all time great wins. 

 

Thanks for mentioning this. I was wondering if he had ever left Spalding before the tragedy.

[TheDeanAbides]

My dad had the laminated Whale. He loved it (even though he couldn't really hit it), but I hated the thing. It seemed like a cartoon club to me. Now I think I'd enjoy hitting it. 

[scomac2002]

On 7/25/2021 at 10:53 PM, dan360 said:

I'd argue in 1989-1991 all most buyers saw was the headcover.  Sort of similar even today, and a good reason TM went with the white woods....(tattle tale'd on the headcovers, bag, shirt, hat, and such)

 

 

My signature line here for a good number of years was Payne's direct response to the Top Flite fiasco:

 

"For one thing, when you're playing as well as I was at the time, you think you can play with anything. That isn't true, of course, but I didn't know it then." 

 

 

 

I don't think that Rory has figured that out yet even after all these years.  That said, he does have a nice fat bank account thanks to Nike!