TESTERS ANNOUNCED! - Wilson Staff DUO, DUO Spin & FG Tour Balls!

[GolfSpy Barbajo 9,188]

Are they offering the Staff Titanium Balata as a testing option? If so, I'm bummed I over looked this thread more than a dozen times.

 

Darn, I reached my "Like" limit for the day.  I'd start a round with a dozen nice, crisp clean Balata's.  By the 16th hole they'd all be smiling back at me....

[fozcycle 11,012]

This is going to be a great golfball review......I am honored to be a part of it.

[Mike Z 261]

Congrats, testers.  Very interested to see reviews of the Tour ball.  I tried the tour a couple of years ago and left with a "meh" impression, but it appears to me that Wilson has been making great strides to getting back to where they once were.  I used to really like their Pro Staff ball. 

[Undershooter 4,023]

Congrats everyone for being selected! I know everyone will enjoy trying out the Wilson balls they will be sent. I was very impressed with Wilson's golfball offerings the last 2 years.

[MotoGolfer250 5]

Thank you to both MyGolfSpy and to Wilson Golf for this opportunity. This will be my first test and review on this site and I will do my best to fully test these balls out and to give the most accurate and inclusive feed back that I can.

 

Again Thanks!

[Txstcatman 88]

Really excited to be reviewing the Duo Spin! I've tended to play more pricey balls looking for the ability to play a little more spin but at the expense of my bank account. I saw the Duo Spin in Golfsmith yesterday and am wondering how it'll perform for the price point. I may compare it side by side to the Project(a).

[revkev 21,702]

Excited for the testers - I'm sure all of you will do us proud!  I'm very happy to see that my friend Woz was selected.  Just remind him that it's not a hockey puck.

[fozcycle 11,012]

Will be waiting for this test to begin this week......out of 40+players every Saturday, nobody is gaming the Duo Spin yet, so guess I'll be the first. Been playing several two pice balls lately, Maxfli SoftFli, 3UP, DT Solo, Duo, etc. I am ready for the Duo Spin.

[Joezilla 3]

Thank you to both MyGolfSpy and to Wilson Golf for this wonderful opportunity. This is also my first test and review on any site, and I will do my best to fully test these balls and to give the best report I can. Hopefully the balls arrive this week. I am really looking forward to trying the Wilson Duo.

 

Joe

[Bogey in The Woods 428]

Very excited! Got my Wilson Staff Duos in the mail yesterday. Really like the looks of the ball. very clean. Was very impressed that they stamped them special "For MGS Test Only". So I guess you can say I just got my first Custom marked golf balls! I can wait to hit em this saturday. Tee time is made, clubs have ACTUALLY been cleaned, and I am ready for this week to be over. 

 

Looking forward to reporting on these 29 compression balls!!

[fozcycle 11,012]

Very excited! Got my Wilson Staff Duos in the mail yesterday. Really like the looks of the ball. very clean. Was very impressed that they stamped them special "For MGS Test Only". So I guess you can say I just got my first Custom marked golf balls! I can wait to hit em this saturday. Tee time is made, clubs have ACTUALLY been cleaned, and I am ready for this week to be over. 

 

Looking forward to reporting on these 29 compression balls!!

 

DITTO! Mine came in yesterday as well.......did some indoor putting last night....very soft touch.

[Txstcatman 88]

DITTO! Mine came in yesterday as well.......did some indoor putting last night....very soft touch.

The Duo Spins came in yesterday. Thinking I'll use a sleeve in my scramble Saturday, low key group and no pressure so I can really swing away.

[Bogey in The Woods 428]

On the number one tee box right now about to see what they can do.

[Txstcatman 88]

Round today was good. Already liking the DUO Spin. Might be my new favorite ball. Have to put it through the paces on some better greens than Pt Venture had to offer (still recovering from rains/floods).

[sp0rtsfan86 839]

Ugh. I'm on vacation for a week. Balls came in Friday and went to the office, which closes early and gets open late. Will be a week before I see them. May buy a sleeve of them to try them out and start a comparison.

[tacotollefson67 11]

Received the anticipated Wilson Staff Duo Spin Box in the mail yesterday, fortunately I was playing in a 144 person tournament that day, I was very excited, first of all to be selected to become a tester, and a chance to share my thoughts on new products. When I received the box, immediately I was impressed with the graphics and detail on the marketing end on the packaging, well done. I opened them up, and firstly compared the feel, dimple pattern, graphics to my Srixon Q Star, very similar cover material, bounce test, about the same, feel (compression), about the same, but the big difference was the detailed dimple pattern, looks like they really spent a lot of time designing and testing this dimple pattern, to me, at a glance looks to be a 3D trianglular pattern from afar under my desk lamp. Impressed, but time to test. First Drive, right off the bat, felt good, 260 down the left side of fairway, my fault, good flight pattern, felt as if I hit a puffy doughnut hole, hit the sweet spot and flew off the face. All the other drives, not all good, but felt solid but soft, hard to explain, very consistent flight pattern and feel. Short irons noticed considerable stopping power, compared to my Q, from 100-60 yards in. Between 60-10 yards in not as impressed on the stopping power or spin, very comparable to my Q and Lethal. Putting was a joy, I always appreciate a ball that has a good solid contact, but also has a great response of the putter face, and roles true.With the enhanced graphics it made it easier to line up the put and trust your stroke. Only one round, more to come.

[Bogey in The Woods 428]

So let me start with this preface since this is my first real review for MGS. If you can believe the USGA (do so at your own risk), the average American Male golfer plays an 18 handicap. So playing anywhere from a 20-23 handicap, I guess I am a slightly less than average golfer. I believe that I am an average rec golfer. I love the game. I like and want to get better. From shooting in the high 100-teens over a year ago when I started playing to shooting in the mid 90's right now, I am satisfied with what I have done so far. I want to, and plan to, get better. Yet I know it will take some more money and time. With a baby on the way, I know my progression in skill will be put on hold a bit. I understand basics in golf i.e.: why I slice, how spin affects ball flight, why Tiger is sucking. (OK, maybe no one really knows the last one, but you get my drift.) I will not try to understand what makes this shaft better than that one. I don't want to try to comprehend why speed pockets, or compression channels make clubs easier for me to hit (if, in fact, they do). If I want to know if something would be good for my game, I normally turn to my buddies here on the boards. Normally, I don't need and engineering degree to get the answers they give me. So the bottom line, is that I see myself as Average Joe Golfer (USGA be damned). As such, that's how I will frame my review. So if you want Foresight numbers, skip my report now. I am gonna give you the Average Joe Golfer way it is. That being said:

 

Bogey in the Wood's two cents on the Wilson Duo

Needless to say, I was very excited to be chosen to participate in the MGS testing. Even though I wanted to be in the Hogan testing, the bottom line, is that shooting in the 90's I wouldn't be much help in a real evaluation on that gear. Someday…….just not today. Wilson Duo, the 29 compression ball, IS something that I can put through its paces. And so I did.

 

When I got the balls in the mail, I immediately opened them to put my mark on the balls for play. Normally a small “H” slightly above the name. Obviously this was a moot point when I saw that Wilson specially stamped these for the MGS test. It is amazing how something so simple can make a hack like me feel special. Almost like it was my first “custom” swag from the golfing world.  Hell, not almost. It WAS my first custom swag, and I grinned like a little schoolboy on Christmas.

So marking them was moot. I did it anyway. While doing so, I examined each of the balls. Of the 12, 3 had small imperfections on the shell. Of those three, two turned out to be excess material that seemed to simply get stuck to the ball during the manufacture process. The last was a bit more significant than that. Possibly a small ding in the mold used to make the ball. To get it off, I ended up using a small razor blade and actually cut it free. This left a small knick in the ball. Nothing to concern me.

Overall, I really like the look of the ball. It is clean. I am not a fan of overly-large labels or logos. I think a simple name or logo is sufficient. Titleist is the standard for a clean simple label. Nike is the standard for a clean logo that needs no name. I don't think you need your name AND logo on a ball (Callaway, Taylormade, Bridgestone). Nice, clean and simple. That's what I want to see on my ball.

Now after reading Fozcycle posting on the thread about how soft they felt putting, I figured I would read up a bit on the science of golf balls. BIG MISTAKE. It isn't bad that I learned some things. It was bad that reading it put some pre-conceived notions in my head that didn't do me any favors when I played.

 

PLAY TIME

 

I chose Shadowglen Golf Club for my round. After the floods of a few weeks ago, I was curious to see how the course had faired. With three of the fairways at least three feet underwater during the worst of the weather, I really wanted to see how bad it was. It wasn't bad at all. In fact, they had done a stupendous job of getting the course play ready.

After my normal bucket on the range, I went to the putting green. Again, I enjoyed the clean look of the ball. The aiming line on the side of the ball was almost perfect for me. I started with putting a tee into the green and aiming for it instead of a hole. I read somewhere that is a way to focus your stroke. The feel on contact was very soft indeed. So much so, that when thinking about writing this, I almost went and bought some jumbo marshmallows to take a picture of me trying to putt. Gone was the normal, semi solid “thwump” I normally hear when I am putting. The sound reminded me of what it might sound like if you put a silencer on a putter. The normal feel of contact was greatly muted as well.  So much so, that I thought I was just really using super soft hands and not making the contact I usually do. Turns out that wasn't the case. Once I became accustomed to the sound and feel, I could begin to pay attention to the putt itself.

The balls roll true. With the soft feel and sound, they still rolled just as far and true as my usual e7 balls did. I didn't find a need to change anything of my stroke other than my expectations of sound and feel. On longer putts, I am notorious for really slapping at the ball and bouncing it for the first few feet. I didn't find this with the Duos. Once I noticed this, I tried to see what it would take to bounce them with my putter. It finally took a putt all the way across the entire putting green (approx. 100 ft wide) that flew off the green by about 15 feet before I could bounce the ball off the putter.

The last significant difference I found on the putting green was the bounce once it fell in the cup. If you have ever dropped a ping pong ball into an empty glass, you know what I am about to describe. The first Duo I dropped in the cup fell on top of one of the driving range balls already in there. It was only a four foot putt so I could see the cup well. The Duo bounced around the sides of the cup and top of the other ball for a few seconds. I pulled the balls and putt a few more of the Duos into cups. The same ping pong'esque bounce repeated itself for me. Don't know why it surprised me like it did.  I thought it unusual from my normal ball and wanted to mention it here.

TEE TIME

I chose to play three balls off each tee and chose the best two to play to the pin. I was alone and course was open, so I didn't need the slow play missile to help me keep the pace of play. I used the Duo, Bridgestone e7, and the Nike Mojo as my three balls. I have played several rounds with the two latter and know what to expect.

Expecting my normal first tee jitters was unfounded today. Teeing up the Duo a little lower than I usually do, I went ahead and swung at what I am guessing was about 80% of my “go for broke” tee shot.  I flashed back again to the image of hitting a jumbo marshmallow based on the feel and sound of the hit. As I began to look up to follow the ball, expecting a mishit bassed on sound and feel, I was amazed to see it shoot down the middle of the short stuff.

 

The 241 yard shot from the tee is a smidge better than my normal shot off of number 1 on any course.

I began to think It was a lucky mishit. My other two balls performed as they normally do. Both coming to rest on the right side of the fairway about 10 yards further than the Duo.

As the round progressed, my preconceived notions about what I had read on this ball began to give me issues. With the continued soft “mishit” feel and sound of contact, I kept telling myself to club up, or muscle up to get this crème puff ball to the green. Big Mistake! As you can see on my third shot to number 1, I flew the green by a considerable distance. This was not an isolated incident. Yet each time I hit long, at the moment of contact, I just KNEW I was short and off center. By around the 14th or 15th hole, I was getting acustomed to the sound and feel. Finally beginning to find my range on approach shots to what I was expecting and getting with the other balls.

Approach to the green was not as easy to stop the ball. Found I couldn't make the spin on the ball I was used to. Each time, I would drop one of my normal balls and make the same shot, normally stopping the ball as I expect to. Found myself chipping or hitting “bump and runs” with the Duo, where I would pitch with my other balls. With chipping, the ball seemed to run out a little shorter than the other balls.  Once I became used to the balls behavior, it was easy to predict performance.

 

OVERALL IMPRESSION

So the bottom line was this is a ball that is just as soft as they claim. When it comes to distance, the ball is almost as long as they claim it is. Once you get used to not hearing and feeling the same thing that you may be used to on impact, this is a fun ball to play. What I may have lost off the tee in distnace, I gladly traded off for being on the fairway. Of my 13 tee shots with my driver or three wood, 11 of them found me on the fairway with the Duo. My normally played balls were 10-25 yards further downrange, but always in the longer, less hospitable foliage. I will take that loss of distance to hit from the fairway EVERYTIME!

A while back, I read about guys playing a ladies ball due to the soft feel and long hit. I think it was the Solaire. I can see why that might be appealing. This ball is very soft. I will continue to play these balls till they are gone. Once gone, I will probably not buy more. The sound and feel and almost too soft for me. I will, however, try the other offerings from Wilson based on these balls.

You want a soft and fairly long ball? Give the Duo a try.

[Woz 12]

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