When was the last time a Wilson driver made you stop what you were doing and go, “Hey, sailor, new in town?”
I will wait.
This does not mean Wilson hasn’t given us some pretty good drivers over the years. Last year’s DYNAPWR carbon was pretty good. The D7 from 2019 was also very good, as was the D200 from 2015. Hell, call me crazy, but I thought the Triton and Cortex drivers from Driver vs Driver were pretty good too.
However, one small problem. Callaway and TaylorMade can get away with “very good” and still sell a lot of drivers. Wilson can’t. Too good, for Wilson (and every other OEM outside the Big Four, for that matter) isn’t good enough.
The needles remain stationary.
That said, the DYNAPWR driver series is the best Wilson has given us since Killer Whale. And its new model, the DYNAPWR MAX+, has a chance to move the ball a little further down the court.
At least that’s what the good people in Chicago hope.
Wilson DYNAPWR MAX+: 10k hope
First things first. For the remainder of this article, the DYNAPWR MAX+ will be referred to as the Dynapower Max+. I stand firm in my love of vowels and a staunch foe of unnecessary capital letters. It’s a hill to die on and besides, it’s a pain in the butt to climb. (Eds note: One more reason I love this guy!)
Despite the letters and vowels, there is leadership hope in Chicago. Wilson is touting the new Dynapower Max+, in all its 10K MOI combo glory, as “the fairest, most forgiving driver in the brand’s history.”
“10k MOI is something we’ve wanted to do for a while, but we wanted to do it correctly,” Wilson Advanced Golf R&D Manager Jared Guttman tells MyGolfSpy. “It took us quite a few different approaches to get to the point where we were happy.
A 10K MOI driver is no longer a surprise. It is probably easier to list the OEMs that not have one at this point. By the way, this 10k number is a bit of a fiction, as it combines UK with heels and UK north-south. It’s a marketing term, but the net result is a stable, forgiving driver that keeps spin more consistent, loses less speed on errant shots, and holds its line better on heel and toe shots.
In other words, for those of us who want to use the driver’s entire face (Hey, me PAID for the whole face, too use whole face), we will tend to hit straighter (OK, straight-HI) shots with better distribution.
Since the USGA has that pesky 460cc head size limit, the 10K value MOI can present unwanted challenges, especially with sound and feel. This is something Wilson has struggled with in the past, regardless of the MIA. Getting the sound and feel right on the Dynapower Max+ was a major design priority.
Big troops, big challenges
When you go 10K, the steering geometry changes a bit. While displacement stands at 460cc, the profile looks, well, bigger.
“When you go with a larger profile, super-forgiving head, you exponentially increase how hard it is to make it sound and feel like, say, a Carbon LS driver,” says Guttman.
“The first thing a golfer notices, even before the launch numbers appear on the screen, is the sound of the shot.”
The latest ones Wilson The Dynapower Carbon and Dynapower LS drivers have a lot of carbon fiber and deliver a strong, powerful sound. To get the new Max+ 10K to sound the same and feel silent, Wilson used what it calls its Topology Optimization technology.
“Topology optimization helps us understand the internal structure to get a positive sound,” explains Guttman. “We wanted it to sound good no matter where we put the weight in or where you hit the ball on the clubface.”
Another challenge for 10k driver heads is ball speed. In general, the idea is that the increased forgiveness and fairness more than make up for the loss of ball speed.
“Players want forgiveness, but they don’t want to sacrifice speed to get it,” says Guttman. “You can indiscriminately add mass to a head to raise the MOI, but we want to keep the head fast and the ball speed fast. So we set a limit for the head to weigh 200 grams, just like our standard Carbon, LS and Max.”
Small faces and PKR-360
Given the volume limitations, the face on the Dynapower Max+ is a bit smaller than you’d expect. Wilson was able to remove five grams of mass from the face in the process. The face is usually the heaviest part of the driver’s head and is also not the largest point of mass from an MIA perspective. On a 200 gram head, an extra five grams of free weight to move to the rear means Wilson doesn’t have to change the shape of the head too much.
Additionally, Wilson updated its AI-designed PKR-360 variable thickness face for the 10K world. PKR stands for Peak Kinetic Response, a marketing science hybrid term that describes the moment during impact when a material goes from absorbing energy to actually releasing it.
“When you change the thickness of an area, it doesn’t just affect that spot,” Guttman explains. “That affects the rest of the system. When we plug an analysis into our supercomputer, we can optimize how the face moves back and forth, but we can also have the crown, front edge, topline, heel and toe all move as well.”
Wilson is also highlighting the unique bulge and roll face design for the Dynapower Max+.
“As you look at where you can place the CG on the driver’s head, you look at the fore-aft distance and where the CG is in relation to the impact location,” Guttman explains. “This will bring about a change in the amount of head movement.
“As you look at our lineup, there’s a different bounce and roll from the LS to the Max+ because each has a different CG depth.”
Wilson Dynapower Max+ and the new world order
We are very close to the end of the launch season. I hope you have paid attention. The driver messages from each OEM have been very different this year. 2026 is not a distant year; is a distance parity year.
It’s not even the year of the fastball. It is one smaller circle year.
I don’t know about you, but I find it refreshing.
In almost every driver story we’ve published, the OEMs are saying the same thing. It’s about making the rest of the face act more like the center of the face and making the delta between a center strike and a heel or toe strike as small as possible.
“If you focus too much on distance, you forget that we’re just trying to score better,” Guttman says. “You can do anything to get distance and forget about the rest of the club, the playability, the sound, the aerodynamics.”
We know drivers aren’t maxed out, but we also know they’re getting closer. OEMs can’t really raise the ceiling much higher, but they can raise the floor in the name of distance equality.
I kind of like that term.
On the other hand, it could be that all the supercomputers OEMs use for their AI designs somehow learned to communicate with each other and took over.
I’m no conspiracy theorist, but you never know…
Dynapower’s Final Thoughts
We started this piece wondering if Wilson’s new 10K driver will move the needle for the good people of Chicago. Hate to be unhappy, but it depends on what you mean by “movement”. Wilson faces an uphill, near Siziphean, battle to be a player in the driver game. That’s not to say the Dynapower Max+ isn’t a good driver. I have tried it. It’s very good.
But like we said, “too good” doesn’t cut the mustard. The Big Four’s stranglehold on the driver market seems virtually unbreakable, and competition among the next generation of fighters is fierce. COBRA, Mizuno, PXG and Srixon all have compelling drivers as well as a growing cadre of direct-to-consumer brands. Very well will sell some drivers, but I don’t think Wilson believes it will suddenly become a market force either.
None of that matters though. The only thing that really matters is whether it works for you. The best Wilson can hope for is that if you give the Dynapower Max+ a fair swing, you’ll find it does what you need it to: hit the ball a reasonable distance and straight into play.
And for those of you who want to know how Wilson should price things, here’s a little nugget: The new Dynapower Max+ will retail for $499.99. That, friends, is $150 to $200 less than the usual suspects. At that price point, quite well it will actually save you some money.
Wilson Dynapower Max+: Specs, Price and Availability
The new Wilson Dynapower Max+ 10K driver comes in four loft options. The standard Max+ comes in 9, 10.5 and 12 degree heads (only the 10.5 degree model comes left handed). There is also a Max+ LITE model, which comes in a 12 degree head.
The heads have a six-way adjustable hosel and an adjustable back weight.
UST LIN-Q PowerCore Blue is the stock axle. It comes in A-, R- and S-bends, all weighing 55 grams. The LITE model features the 40 gram UST Helium NCT 4.
The Lamkin Crossline 360 Black is the stock grab.
As mentioned, the Wilson Dynapower Max+ will retail for $499.99. It’s available for pre-order on February 10th and should hit retail on the 24th.
For more information, visit www.wilson.com.
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