Wilson Staff Tour Blade FG-49

nlsouth · January 24, 2014

Hi All,

I'm a long time reader of the GolfWRX forums and this is my first post.

Like many before me, I've just embarked on collecting vintage golf clubs - particularly Hogan clubs (which appear to be hard to come by here in Australia)

On my travels today I ventured into a pawnbroker with a large warehouse out back and stumbled upon a set of Wilson Staff Tour Blade FG-49 1 Iron through SW each with Dynamic Gold X100 shafts.

Despite showing signs of wear on the more popular short irons, I couldn't pass them up for 20 bucks. They're a beautiful club!

Does anybody know of these clubs and approx what year they were released? Very limited info online.

I'd imagine they are a better players club considering the location of the wear being around the sweet spots.

juice744 · January 24, 2014

Hey.
Nice buy man. Very cool and a great price. I think those are from the mid to late 80s. I'm just guessing since the fg17 was early 80s and fg51 was early 90s... but I could be wrong (thoughe I thought they went in progressive order smaller # to larger ones)
Typically the 1iron and 2 iron in some of the older wilson staff sets are worth a lot more than the rest of the irons. I've seen fg17 2irons selling around $20 or more and 1irons selling for $80!!
But for $20... you can't go wrong.

Enjoy

J

birly-shirly · January 24, 2014

Great clubs. I think they may have been a euro, and possibly commonwealth, only issue - there isn't much about them on the web. I turned up an ebay set in the UK, and took them along for a lesson and my pro got a bit dewy eyed - said they'd caused a bit of a stir during his euro tour days.

My set had old school lengths - about half an inch shorter than the equivalent modern standard.

"Players clubs"? They're about as pure a blade as you can find. Barely even a muscleback. 1- SW. X100. Yep - I think they qualify :yes:

Titleist87 · January 24, 2014

[url="http://www.golfwrx.com/forums/topic/504029-wilson-staff-fg-49-fg-55-tour-blades/"]http://www.golfwrx.com/forums/topic/504029-wilson-staff-fg-49-fg-55-tour-blades/[/url]

nlsouth · January 27, 2014

Many thanks all for your comments and info. drstroud thanks for the link, what a collection he has!

They are truly great looking clubs. But, after taking them to the range for a hit I discovered how hard they were to get working for me. Definitely not the shafts for me (although I did manage to get a couple on line)

Jumping from reg shafts to X100s with vintage small heads is scary!

ewfnick · March 8, 2014

I still play them!!!

rileyj · March 8, 2014

I love finding a good wear mark on the center of a vintage set. This is like an endorsement: somebody used this set effectively, and were committed to it for a long time. Somebody loved them, and went through many ups and downs, maybe played some tournaments and had some glory and some heartbreak together with this set. That is a low handicap wear pattern - somebody who would have been motivated to change gear if ever in doubt.

I'm always a bit suspicious of a very old set with no wear. Might be pretty but not very functional.

It also gives you a good idea where the center of mass is for this particular head geometry. On the older sets, it's often not in the geometric center. In this case it looks to be nudged towards the hosel which is not uncommon for older clubs with larger necks.

freddiec · March 8, 2014

I know a guy who was a solid 1 handicap back in the 80s. I used to caddy for him a few times during the club championship. I was just a kid. He played Staff tour blades (FG 17s) I believe and the 7,8 and 9 irons had no groves anywhere on or just around the sweet spot. None! , they were all worn away completely. It was just a rusty wear mark. He was the type that would hit 100s of range balls 5 days a week. It amazing how those clubs were still effective for him. You never see that today.