Wilson Staff Triad Golf Ball Review

The Wilson Staff Triad golf ball has been designed to help reasonable club golfers find more fairways, hit more greens and hole more putts. The idea is to make breaking 80 a reality.

Imagine a golf ball that sold itself on finding three more fairways, five more greens and holing three more putts per round- surely this would make for the best golf ball?

It’s difficult to believe such a ball could be developed, but in part at least that’s because golf balls have only ever been sold on the grounds of being faster, longer, spinnier or softer.

If a ball really could help you hit three more fairways, five more greens and hole three more putts per round would you try one? You would if you realised those traits meant lots of club golfers switching from shooting 90, to breaking 80.

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The elusive 79 is such an emotive number in golf, as it not only sounds better than 82 or 83, it’s also seen by many as the hallmark of decent players. That means Wilson’s new Triad ball, the first that promises to help reasonable club golfers break 80, could be on the cusp of capturing the imagination of tons of reasonable club golfers around the world.

Wilson reckon three more fairways, five more greens and three more holed putts was the foundation of their thinking when their lab-coated golf ball boffins set about developing the Triad.

It is a three-piece, urethane covered ball that comes at the market from a very different angle, as its goal is not helping golfers hit further, faster or higher, but simply helping reasonable club golfers to score better.

Wilson are currently seeing success with irons for ‘bridge’ players (reasonable club golfers who love the look of a Wilson Staff Model blade iron, but actually need the brand’s new D9 Forged), who sit on the fence between the Players’ Distance and Mid-Handicap iron categories.

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And with such a shift in consumer demand the brand’s hierarchy reckon the timing is perfect to reveal a ball designed specifically for ‘bridge’ golfers, filling a gap right in the middle of the Wilson golf ball line-up.

Where the brand’s tour-level Staff Model (four-piece) ball is aimed at decent single figure handicappers and tour players at one end of the scale, the two-piece Duo Soft + targets club golfers wanting super soft feel along with excellent distance and straightness at the other end. So, in the middle, sits a decent-sized Triad gap.

Wilson say there isn’t yet a ball that dominates this space even though the competition is fierce with the likes of the TaylorMade Tour Response, Callaway Chrome Soft and ERC Soft, Titleist AVX and Tour Speed, Srixon Q-Star Tour and Bridgestone RX and RXS already scrapping over market share within the category.

The ultimate goal for Triad is to become the go-to golf ball for reasonable club golfers looking to break 80, and there’s no reason why one of the best Wilson golf balls can’t be a go-to-ball for millions of golfers.

Details: Wilson Staff Triad golf ball

RRP: £39

Construction: 3-piece with ultra-thin painted urethane cover

Compression: 85

Details: Wilson Staff Triad R golf ball

RRP: £39

Construction: 3-piece with ultra-thin raw (unpainted) cover

Compression: 85

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How does the Wilson Staff Triad help you hit more fairways?

MOI is talked about a lot when it comes to drivers, irons and putters, yet it rarely gets a mention when it comes to golf balls. Yet Wilson’s brilliant golf ball engineer Frank Simonutti and his team have come up with the idea of upping the MOI of the Triad so golfers naturally hit more fairways.

Moving weight from the middle of the ball to the outside sounds like a simple idea, but when you realise a conforming golf ball can’t weigh more than a miniscule 45.93g, plus a premium three-piece ball is made up of three different materials, the logistics of optimising a ball for MOI are anything but straight forward.

Wilson say the core of a golf ball is by far the heaviest part, so removing weight from it and placing it further towards the outside of the ball gives significant MOI gains, just like designing a forgiving driver or iron.

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A typical premium three-piece golf ball has a 36.3g core, which is 79.1% of the entire ball’s weight. A further 5.8g is used in creating the mantle layer (the bit between the cover and core), with a further 3.8g allotted to the cover. So by removing a single gram from the Triad’s core, the weight distribution is changed, with 2% less being accounted for by the core.

It sounds like tiny amounts but Wilson promise the switch, when combined with less driver spin, makes several yards of accuracy improvement, which is just enough to allow reasonable golfers to hit a few more fairways per round.

Wilson also say the Triad is for golfers who are happy with how far they hit the ball rather than those seeking more distance. The Triad has an 85 compression, which Wilson refer to as medium firmness, which is similar to the Titleist AVX and Tour Speed, so if it’s super soft feel you’re after you really should be looking at the Duo Soft + ball instead.

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Simonutti and his team specifically dialled down driver backspin with the Triad, as less spin naturally improves accuracy from the tee box. Triad spins 100 RPM less with the driver (and 300 RPM less with an iron, but just 400 RPM less with a wedge) than the brand’s tour level Staff Model ball.

Naturally Wilson’s own testing has shown the Triad to be fast and long (fastest in the category in fact), which in part comes down to the firmer compression, which is firm versus the category’s competition but at the softer end of tour-level urethane balls, like a Titleist Pro V1.

How does the Wilson Staff Triad help you hit more greens?

In short, by Spin Tailoring. Where low spin is great with the driver Wilson needed to dial it back up with the irons, so shots will stop on the dancefloor.

Simonutti realised that the thinner he took the Triad’s cover thickness the more he could dial spin back up, as he encouraged an iron’s face to interact more with the ball from the 7-iron to sand wedge.

Triad has an ultra-thin urethane cover, which is not much thicker than half a dimple depth, so it promotes spin on shorter approach shots into greens.

Wilson’s comparative testing looked at spin averaged across 7-iron, 9-iron and a 56° wedge, and the Triad came out top of class (the Callaway Chrome Soft was a close second). So as good as the Triad is at helping you hit the fairway from the tee box, it also has the capability to attack more pins, even on firm greens, thanks to the extra spin control produced from its ultra-thin cover, say Wilson.

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How does the Wilson Staff Triad help you hole more putts?

It probably involved some serious head scratching at Wilson’s Chicago HQ but ultimately it boils down to density balancing and core concentricity.

There’s been a ton of discussion around off-centre cores in golf balls over the last few years, and now that we know the core is by far the heaviest part of the golf ball it doesn’t take the brain power of Einstein to work out that an off-centre core causes serious accuracy issues whether you’re using a driver, iron or putter.

Triad is the only ball within its category that sets out to help golfers hole more putts, so Wilson wanted something more than just  a promise that their quality control processes ensure every core of every ball produced is in the centre.

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What they cleverly came up with is density balancing. Where a traditional three-piece urethane ball’s core, mantle and cover are all different densities, the Triad has all three layers matched to each other. The idea eliminates heavy spots for improved accuracy, and rolls like a single piece golf ball, which is never off balance, so will help more putts drop.

There’s a raw unpainted Triad R too

Wilson revealed raw unpainted golf balls when they launched the Staff Model R back in 2020. Three coats of paint are added to the exterior of traditional balls because golfers like playing with a white golf ball.

However, that paint can be inconsistently applied and pool, covering 30% of a dimple’s depth which detracts aerodynamically from the ball’s performance and leads to inconsistencies in accuracy.

So, if you want to play the best, most consistent golf ball then it has to be unpainted. Be warned that they will discolour a fraction during play but Wilson say that doesn’t detract from performance, which is exactly why there’s also a raw unpainted Triad R in the line-up.

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Wilson Staff Triad Golf Ball

RRP: £39 per dozen | VIEW UK OFFER | $40 per dozen | VIEW US OFFER

Construction: 3-piece with ultra-thin painted urethane cover

Compression: 85

Wilson Staff Triad R golf ball

RRP: £39

Construction: 3-piece with ultra-thin raw (unpainted) cover

Compression: 85

Visit the Wilson website here