“I’ve always felt that Callaway clubs are ahead of the game in terms of performance”
Ryder Cupper and European Tour veteran Oliver Wilson has remained loyal to the brand throughout his topsy-turvy career
HMy first driver was the Callaway Warbird when I was 13 or 14. When I was at college in America, I was using Callaway irons and woods. Then I met the Callaway rep, Chris Tuten, and everything became Callaway and I moved over to an Odyssey putter. When you’re young, everyone is trying to get free gear, so it was nice to be on their radar as an amateur.
I finished college in 2003, and I remember I changed to Taylormade RAC irons for a week at the beginning of the spring season and went down to the Gator championship in Florida. I ended up playing great and winning. The Taylormade rep was delighted, but I saw him the next week and gave him the irons back. I just didn’t like the feel of them.
I turned pro after the 2003 Walker Cup and signed a 14-club deal with Callaway. I have been with them ever since. Initially, back in the day, they were just so forgiving. Now a lot of other brands are too, but with the Callaway clubs I always felt like they were ahead of the game in terms of forgiveness, maximising distance and the size of the sweetspot.
For me, the irons are fairly easy to switch over from because the specs are the same. The only thing you’ve got to figure out is how they interact with the turf and perform from different lies, which you can do pretty quickly. With wedges, I change them every three months.
I could probably do with changing my lob wedge more, but every time it is an identical club. A lob wedge gets worn in and you spend so much time playing feel shots with it, suddenly a new one feels different. I would have a new lob wedge in the bag just to practise with for a week or two before using it to dull the grooves and make sure it isn’t spinning too much. Then there’s a sweetspot for a couple of months before I start getting a little bit more distance when it isn’t spinning as much. That’s when I know I need new wedges.
I’m not just saying this, but the Mavrik is the best driver they’ve had for a while now. It is a couple of miles an hour quicker for me without losing forgiveness. I’m loving my MD5 58° wedge, too; I love hitting different shots around the green, feeling how it interacts
with the ground. I’ve got a C-grind with a little bit more taken off the heel and toe so I can manoeuvre the face a little bit more. I also have a ribbed grip which gives me feedback on what I’m doing with the clubface.
I’ve got a Toulon San Diego blade putter. I used a mallet putter for pretty much my entire career up until the beginning of last year. With a mallet, you always feel like you’re cheating a little bit, so I went to a bladed putter just so I could feel like a proper golfer again!
The one that really stands out is the Warbird driver. That was one of the best drivers ever made, really. The Great Big Bertha was amazing, so was the FT3, and I really liked the Rogue too.
I’m not really that involved, although I’m lucky in that I play at The Wisley where Pete Harrison [Callaway’s director of tour relations] is a member. He’ll always have some new product with him. We’ll hit some on the range and have a play to see how they feel and perform.
If I get a new driver and I’m driving it really well on the range, I’ve got extra distance and it feels like the forgiveness is there, then I’d be happy to put that in play sooner rather than later. It’s easy to test clubs when you’re swinging well, almost anything will work. The ultimate test is getting it under pressure when you’re not swinging well to see what the misses do and how much distance you lose. It takes time but it’s worth it in the end.
Growing up as a young kid, one of my idols was Nick Faldo. He played Mizuno for a long time and was synonymous with the brand. I just loved the style of his game and his work ethic. I felt like he would be someone who went to great lengths to try to make sure he had the best equipment and I think I fell in love with the brand because of Nick Faldo playing it. There’s a picture of me playing in Spain aged nine with a Mizuno golf bag so clearly I liked the brand from a young age.
I think for a long time Mizuno has been known as a great iron maker. Any time you put a club down on the ground, it looks amazing. But the clubs also have great feel and give you great feedback – certainly the better I got, the more I enjoyed that. I first signed with Mizuno in 2004, my third year on tour, and it just seemed like a natural fit.
I played two years with Ben Hogan before, but then after that contract ran out I decided to go with a brand that was very recognisable to me and I’ve been with Mizuno ever since.
It is easy to fall into the trap of chasing money as a professional. I didn’t really do that – I decided to play the equipment I loved and thought would give me the best chance of being good on the golf course. I wanted to make my money that way. Mizuno seemed like a good fit brand-wise.
For most of my career, only a handful of players have played Mizuno, so it’s felt like a close-knit family. They’re very receptive to my feedback – what I like and don’t like – so it’s nice to feel like you have a role to play.
That can be tricky at times. I understand from a business side of things when they’re trying to push new products and it helps if their professionals are using them.
There have been times in my career when I’ve stuck with a model of iron that has been performing very well for a year or two longer than Mizuno would have wanted, but they understand that having their players doing well and being on TV exposing the brand is more valuable than having the latest club in the bag.
I’m always trying the newest stuff and 95 per cent of the time I enjoy it more. But if I’m not comfortable, they’re not going to push it on me. I like that give and take.
The latest driver, the ST200G, is excellent. As soon as I started hitting it I saw a difference
– it was really solid, I was able to control my dispersion a lot better and I loved the feel of the ball off the face.
I’d probably go to the irons I used when I was number one in the world. I used a few when I was there – the MP-33S and maybe the MP-60S too, although they’re all very good and kind of muddle into each other a little bit in my mind!
This goes back to Mizuno being open to listening to what I like. For a while, I’ve had quite a steep attack into the ball, so how a blade goes through the grass is really important to me. For a time, the front edge of the sole was a bit sharp – it didn’t have enough camber on it. So we worked hard on the sole and now it goes through the ground a little easier.
The other thing would be the grind on my lob wedge. I like to take away a lot of the bounce from the heel to suit my technique. After a few seasons of having to grind my wedges specifically, they simulated my grind on all Mizuno wedges.
It can take a few weeks, but occasionally it takes a day. Sometimes you just know when you start hitting a new club that there’s something really nice about it and it delivers improvements over what you were using.
I will practise with it, use it in practice rounds and matches with people at home and test it in different conditions. It’s not just about the numbers on Trackman; it’s how workable it is, whether I can hit draws and fades and how it performs under pressure when the swing normally changes.
“It’s easy to chase money, but I wanted to earn mine through having success on the course”