One category of golf equipment that Wilson Staff is renowned for is their irons, which have been used to win more majors than any other brand over every decade since the 1920's.
So you would expect them to draw on this heritage to get the Wilson Staff D200 irons right and I think they have.
The D range is all about distance and forgiveness, something most major champions are OK for, but the rest of us could do with some help on.
Compared to the previous D100 model, the D200 irons look a little larger at address, but it is a little bit of an optical illusion as the heads are the same size, but the grooves are fractionally wider towards the toe.
The D200 irons feature the same large undercut cavity as before, but Wilson has made the bottom of the cavity where it joins the face thinner in order to let the face flex faster. They claim the CT is over 230, which is very high for an iron and almost the same as a driver.
Like before, the cavity is so deep that you can see the trailing edge on the 6-iron upwards. I am not mad about this, but at least what you can see looks a little better than it did on the D100.
Using this to create 2mph extra speed is all well and good, but irons are not about speed, they are about hitting the ball a fixed distance on a consistent basis. You need around 7 or 8 of them in sequence that cover a 100 yard range from around 90 yards upwards in equal gaps.
Forgiveness also comes into this and they have taken the saved weight from the cavity and used it in two 'Weight Pods' placed in the heel and toe to minimise twisting on off centre strikes and increase the MOI by 5% over the D100.
The forgiveness was pretty good, but certainly shots that came out of the generous sweetspot generally flew higher and better than those from further out. Low strikes were good, but the extreme heel and toe strikes did not receive as much forgiveness as I thought they would.
The flight was mid to high, although not as high as I expected, but the feel and sound were very good for a game improvement cast iron.
I do like the raised centre section on the sole of the D200, which is narrower than the D100 and skips through the turf very easily and should improve the playability for a lot of players.
The lofts are quite strong and the review set of 5 to SW I tested resulted in a huge gap between the PW at 43° and the SW at 55°, so the 47° GW is a must buy.
Usually in these chunky iron designs, the short irons don't really get with the program, but the D200 SW was one of the best I have come across in this category of iron. It played with a reasonable level of bounce from tight lies and was good enough from the sand for most players to get by with it rather than avoid it.
The D200 irons come with a uniflex True Temper steel shaft that is stable and will suit most levels of golfer, as well as a graphite shaft option too.
If it sounds like I am being a bit harsh on the D200 irons, then I apologise as most comments are just niggly things. Take a step back and look at the overall package and the D200 irons are a very easy to hit, well made game improvement irons that give good forgiveness, distance, sound and feel.
But the best thing is they are one of the cheapest sets around so in terms of value for money and playability I have no hestation in recommending them to anyone starting out or improving into a mid-handicap.