Last week, I was able to take the Wilson Triton out to Gearhart Golf Links, just outside of Seaside, OR for it’s debut round. I was a bit excited to see how well the driver performed on the course after hitting it at the range for the first time the week before. It appeared that I was picking up a solid 10-15 yards a shot at the range, so that type of distance increase would be really beneficial to me on the course. Now we all know that what we see on the launch monitor and what we get on the course can be dramatically different, as can be what we see at the range after getting all warmed up and ready to hit. Stepping up to the first tee cold is never a good idea, but that is what happens at Gearhart as the only thing missing from this exceptional course is a warmup facility – either nets or a range. Other than that, the course is absolutely a pleasure to walk or ride and it really captures the feel of what you might see the tour pros playing during a European Tour event. I’ll gush more on the course during my round review, but this is about the sub $150 driver that could – or could not.
As I said, the first hole I was stepping up cold – and the weather matched it as it was about 50 degrees at 7:30 in the morning when we teed off. My first tee shot was not what I hoped for. It was a slight pull to the left center of the fairway and never got more than about 20 feet off the ground. Still, it was a bullet into the fairway and the 250 yards was nothing to complain too much about. I didn’t hit driver again until the 5th hole, which again, shot off the face extremely low, but again found the left side of the fairway about 250 yards off the tee. Not exactly the consistency I was hoping for, but consistency is good. Fortunately, a small tweak to my setup turned things around for me on the 6th hole. With a small movement of the ball in my setup, I was able to get a better launch angle on the ball and with that, a dramatic distance increase. On the 6th, I was able to play a gorgeous fade down the left side of the fairway that travelled a much stronger 310 yards. This was about as well as I could strike the ball and it was about as perfect of shot as I expected it to produce. Game on.
All good things must come to an end though and on the 7th, I made up for my great shot with a not so great one. A dead solid pull left that caught a side hill and the fescue completely destroyed the average, but having the ability to just chalk that up to a terrible shot and delete the data from the average was helpful. Even as bad as the swing was, I was still in decent shape for the hole and ended up hitting a good approach. Moving on to the 8th, I was able to recover with a completely gorgeous 275 yard fade up the hill on the long par 5. Again, the ball flight was much better with the adjusted stance and the shot was so good, it almost made me forget about the 7th. The 9th provided one more opportunity to hit driver off the tee. a lovely 270 yard fade to the center of the fairway set me up perfectly for another par and left me with 5 of 6 fairways on the front side with the Triton. It was a good performance.
The back side started off with a pretty rancid snap pull off the tee. Still, the ball made it 240 yards out into the fescue before it instantly stopped in the tall grass. Not a bad carry distance for a terrible shot. The Triton came back out on the 12th and yielded a lovely 255 yard fade to the slightly uphill par 4 hole. Again, not a distance killer, but with the winds swirling a bit, not heavy winds mind you, but a good breeze, the ball travelled very well and found another fairway. Hitting into the wind on 13, the Triton shined once again. With a perfect cut, starting left and moving right, the drive found the right side of the fairway about 280 yards off the tee. Again, a solid performance and about all I could hope for on this hole. The 14th was another great tee shot that may not have had tour distance on it, but a 260 yard shot down the middle was about all I needed.
This set me up for the trio of driving holes on 16, 17 and 18. On the 16th, again, the cut was working beautifully with the Triton. Right off the bat, 262 to the center of the fairway. By now you may have noticed a very solid pattern emerging – fairways. The 17th gave me another 260 yard fairway strike. Then it was time for the beast – the incredibly long, par 5 18th. Going back into that swirling breeze, there wasn’t much of a chance of reaching this beast in two at all, so I played it safe with the shot that had been working all day long with the Triton. Another cut, 266 yards into the fairway and I was 6 of 7 on the backside in fairways hit. Overall, the Triton hit 11 of 13 fairways and the only two misses simply couldn’t be blamed on the club. Two completely awful efforts on my part led to those two misses and that’s that. According to my GolfPadGPS stat tracking, I was averaging 270 yards off the tee and hit 85% of my fairways. Comparing that to my F5 driver that has been completely dialed in, I was 1 yard shorter in average and hit almost 30% more fairways. In comparison to my “go to” club, the 2 hybrid, I was almost 30 yards longer off the tee and hit 30% more fairways.
Now, comparing this to a custom fit $500 driver, I’m sure the numbers could go up a bit, but how much performance can you gain with simple club improvements over a another? For the most part, I think the Triton is more than capable of keeping up with the big boys in the distance department (as shown by my 300+ yard drive) and the ability to control the ball flight is simply easy with all the available adjustments. Now, for the better news. You can still grab the Triton at Budget Golf or various other online locations for under $150, even with the limited custom shaft options that they may still have available. If you haven’t tried it out yet, you probably should. Again, the adjustability of this club is about as good as anything else on the market today and that makes it one of the best values in golf, especially at a clearance price point.
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