Long before social media influencers were filming themselves playing glamorous courses and hitting trick shots, decades before moveable weights, titanium drivers and TrackMan, golfers in the ’50s and ’60s such as Sam Snead and Arnold Palmer won major championships using Wilson’s Dynapower irons. When astronaut Alan Sheppard snuck a retractible golf club aboard Apollo 14 and hit a shot on the moon, he used a Wilson Staff Dynapower 6-iron.
Seventy years ago, Dynapower irons were state-of-the-art, with a bore-through hosel that removed weight from the heel. Back then, that made them “game-improvement” clubs, but they were muscleback blades with razor-thin toplines and minimal offset. By today’s standards, they’d be elite-player clubs.
Eventually, Wilson stopped making Dynapower irons and woods, but now the Chicago-based equipment maker is bringing the family back using modern shapes, materials and technologies.
Dynapower Irons
Price: $799.99 with KBS Max Ultralite steel shafts and Lamkin Crossline 360 grips. $899.99 with UST Mamiya Recoil Dart 65 graphite shafts
Specs: Cast cavity-back irons with variable-thickness faces and slots in the sole
Available: March 1
Wilson already makes the Staff Model irons for better players, in both a muscleback blade and a cavity-back, so the company decided to make the reinvented Dynapower irons a game-improvement club that should appeal to a broader segment of the golf world.
After learning that about 40 percent of all approach shots come up short and that mis-hits tend to be either low on the face or toward the toe, engineers focused on improving performance in those areas.
To do that, Wilson designed the Dynapower irons with oversized heads and gave the irons ample offset to allow golfers with a handicap between 10 and 20 to square the face at impact more easily. They also designed the irons with a variable-thickness face that is thicker in the center and gets thinner around the perimeter. That helps broaden the sweet spot, and adding three Power Holes in the sole magnifies the benefits. Power Holes are areas where the metal has been removed from the sole, which allows the lower portion of the hitting area to flex more efficiently. They were designed using thousands of computer simulations to determine their size and position.
The Power Holes are covered by a thin plating that does not inhibit the face from flexing but keeps water and debris from getting inside the clubs.
The low center of gravity encourages high-flying, soft-landing shots for improved distance control, while extra mass in the toe area helps increase the moment of inertia, making the Dynapower irons more stable on mis-hits.
Dynapower Carbon, Dynapower Titanium drivers
Price: $499.99/$429.99 (Carbon/Titanium) with Fujikura Ventus Blue shaft or Project X HZRDUS Red shaft and Lamkin Crossline 360 grips.
Specs: All titanium head with adjustable hosel for the Dynapower Titanium in 9-, 10.5- and 13-degree versions. Titanium chassis with carbon fiber crown and toe panel with adjustable hosel for the Dynapower Carbon in 8-, 9-, 10.5- and 12-degree versions.
Available: March 1
When it comes to drivers, manufacturers can design clubs two ways: Create something that should appeal to a wide range of recreational golfers and then work with pros to get that club into play, or create a driver that appeals to accomplished golfers but try to make it playable for the masses. Traditionally, Wilson made drivers with mid- and higher-handicap players in mind, but with the Dynapower drivers, the company sought feedback and validation from staff professionals first. As a result for 2023, Wilson made the Dynapower Carbon and the Dynapower Titanium for two different player types.
Both Dynapower drivers come standard with a six-position adjustable hosel that allows players and fitters to increase or decrease the loft by as many as 2 degrees. They also have a variable-thickness Peak Kinetic Response (PKR) face that helps protect ball speed on off-center hits.
The Dynapower Carbon driver was made for golfers who want a low-spin option with a low-to-mid launch that allows players to hit both draws and fades. It has a large carbon fiber crown that reduces weight on the club’s top and lowers the center of gravity, along with a carbon fiber panel in the toe portion of the sole.
A 12-gram weight in the back of the head increases forgiveness, and the weight saved using carbon fiber in the crown and sole has been repositioned in the front of the head, which shifts the center of gravity forward to increase ball speed and reduce spin.
The Dynapower Titanium driver is an all-titanium construction with a 16-gram weight in the back of the head that pulls the center of gravity down and away from the hitting area. That should increase spin, help produce a higher launch for more carry distance and boost the moment of inertia for more stability.
Wilson said the Dynapower Carbon produces about 250 rpm less spin than the Dynapower Titanium. At the same time, the titanium model has a slight draw bias for golfers who occasionally slice their drives.
Dynapower Fairway woods and hybrids
Price: $$249.99/$219.99 (fairway woods/hybrids) each with Project X HZRDUS Smoke Red shaft and Lamkin Crossline 360 grip.
Specs: Stainless steel bodies with variable-thickness stainless steel faces. 15, 18, 21 degrees for the fairway woods; 19, 22, 25, 28 degrees for the hybrids
Available: March 1
The Dynapower fairway woods and hybrids are all-steel clubs that feature Dynapower AI faces. Engineers instructed computers to run thousands of simulations of shots and study how the hitting area reacts and any ball-speed performance gains. After each simulation, the computer tweaked the face, looked at the ball speed and performance changes and repeated the process until the best possible combination of thick and thin areas was revealed. The result is solid distance on well-struck shots and more ball-speed protection when you mis-hit in the heel or toe.
The Dynapower fairway woods and hybrids have a low and back center of gravity to encourage a higher ball flight, along with clean, classic looks in the address position.
