I’ve been converted, and am pondering about buying a set of clubs. So, any pointers as to composition, brands, retailers?

Ta!

I herewith rescind my membership of this forum.

Whatever you do, try a few out and get custom fitted to a set. Fit is important, as much so as on a bike, and can vary greatly, so buying off eBay or online not really recommended unless you know exactly what you’re after.

There’s an American Golf store in most big towns these days, they’ll know their stuff in there. Decide on your budget, then get them to make some recommendations. Then try them and see what you like. Golf, like mountain biking, is all about “feel”, and whilst one person may love a particular club, he may hate the one that you like and vice versa. Remember that when it comes to budget, irons are relatively cheap, woods a lot more expensive per club, and putters quite expensive too. But whilst with mountain biking most of the expense is on the bike, with Golf the equipment is the cheap bit!

Not bought any golf kit in years, so not a clue what the latest must haves are, but whatever you go for you’ll probably want “game improvement” or “perimeter weighted” clubs (marketing terms) which mean the club has a lot of weight on the outside edges and a hollow back, making it easier to hit high and straight. I like Ping, cos they don’t release a different model every other week, and they are very customisable. They are expensive though, and you may get better value elsewhere. Oh, and you’ll probably want to experiment with “hybrid irons” instead of say the 3 and 4 irons, and perhaps the 5 wood as they’re easier to hit. Putters are a very personal thing, no real science to them, try a few, you may find a cheap one that suits or not, millions of different designs though.

Anyway, enjoy… And don’t forget to blame your kit when you get your third double bogey in a row, as golfers are even worse than us MTBers in that respect! 😉

The online golf places http://www.onlinegolf.co.uk or direct golf or american golf all have sales that are finishing about now, so a great time to pick up deals. Irons can be had for under 200 a set but spend the extra 50 quid with your local shop to get them fitted. Drivers (good ones) for under a hundred.
Go to your local course and ask about 2nd hand clubs – there are more tarts changing clubs every year than there are on here changing bikes.
Anything by Taylor Made, Ping, Mizuno, Callaway, Cleveland, Cobra etc all good. Avoid ebay – full of fakes. Avoid JJB Sports Dunlop rubbish – they are cheap for a reason.
Even green fees can be had cheap by signing up to online teetimes,co,uk etc.
Good luck – its addictive. Ignore the haters above, they have issues!

Go for steel irons to start with, far too much play In graphite shafts for beginners plus they’ll be cheaper. Don’t go blowing a massive wedge on one full set, shop around, you can save £££’s by buying your irons/drivers and even bag from different stores! When choosing your bag get one with the two straps that you can carry like a rucksack or you’ll be needing a trolley as well. No matter what the Porsche drivers at the club think, everything does not have to match!!!
Green fees are expensive, possibly start off at your local municipal where it’ll be £15/£18 ish a round, there’s nothing more depressing than blowing £60 on a round at a nice club and then wishing you’d brought your bike along due to the amount of time spent in the woods!!
Oh and one last thing, allow 4/ 5 hrs a round if you play at popular times, don’t be telling the mrs I’m just nipping out for a quick round, it causes problems after a while 😉

Have a look on golfbidder.co.uk they just sell used kit. I wouldn’t buy new to start with – to be honest, my latest set of mizuno’s were used – 99% of decent second hand kit is custom fittable should it be required.

Iron wise, look for something forgiving and with a cavity back. Callaway are one of tge most forgiving on the Market. You won’t need a driver to start with, just 3 wood and rescue clubs, and find a putter you like. This isn’t as easy as it sounds, I have about 20 that are on squad rotation, but I have 3 that I generally go to.

Don’t get too hung up on custom fitting, it is important but, you might find the standard loft and lie of clubs suits you already, it depends on your physical size, etc. I.e. If your 6’6 with hands like shovels they’ll need extending by an inch or so probably and the grips thickening. Some guys I know swear by custom fitting, I play off 1.7 and have always found stock settings to be fine for me.

^^^ he knows ^^^

they are all coming out of the closet now

*shakes head and adds a few people to his block list*

+1 for golfbidder.co.uk

(very) occasional golfer but recently upgraded from ancient rubbish irons to some ping i3’s for £150. Came in great condition and have made my odd round far more enjoyable/less frustrating (which about sums golf up for me!)

Cotic soul

Is golf the new MTB?

Golf.. oh yeah..

Boring init.

MD Golf was a good budget buy when I bought mine about 4 years ago. Bought a set of Superstrong Tungsten Ti Irons for 250 quid, Putter for 22, wedge for 25, stand bag with straps for 45, and a trolley for 25 al from pricebustergolf.co.uk.

MD Golf were getting very good reviews at the time for a fledgling British golf company.

I’m no golfer though. Cycling takes up all my time and I get out about 5 times a year now and don’t have a handicap of club membership.

Go to your local Golf course and speak to the Professional in the shop

Oh and all the haterz – You’ve obviously not tried playing or can’t see that Golfers and Mountain Bikers are more alike than you care to think

Go to your local Golf course and speak to the Professional in the shop

so he can sell you the clubs that make him the biggest margin?

Many pros will push you to cast cavity back clubs – yuk.

To learn to play golf you would do well to buy some 2nd hand Hogan Apex blades from ebay.

People percieve blades to be difficult to hit and this is true for some blades but not all, and the right Hogan blades are softer forgings that are pretty easy to hit.

The blades will give you several advantages when learning:

1. You get much more feedback from the clubhead about how you hit the ball.

2. Because they are less forgiving than a cavity back they make you concentrate on putting a good swing down.

Cavity back clubs let you get away with too much and consequently you do – which is detrimental to learning. I have seen people loss both accuracy and distance when going to a more forgiving club as they start to get sloppy with their swing.

Look for Hogan Apex Plus if you don’t want to go for a full blade. You should be able to get a set for £100-£120. I doubt that you will regret it.

Just spotted some ‘redlines’ on ebay going cheap:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Ben-Hogan-apex-redline-1988-irons-3-ew-/270806742582?pt=UK_SportsLeisure_Golf_GolfClubs_JN&hash=item3f0d56f636

I got my set of redlines after a lesson with a local pro who said that someone had just traded them in and I should get them as they were some of the best irons ever made. Comments in golf forums confirm that these are most peoples favourite hogan irons.

They are actually 1/2 or even 1 clubs shorter hitting than most clubs but they feel absolutely beautiful – I can have a bad score but still a good round just based on the feel of using these clubs.

Square grooves so you may not be able to use them in serious competition.

The Apex Pluses might actually be a better buy though…

I would ignore the blade advice! Cavity back irons were designed for a reason – its so that most of us mortals can have some fun on the course. If you are a natural, like the 1.7 bloke up there then try them later on.

Full sets of irons are less than 200 quid in the sales at the moment.

Cavity back irons were designed for a reason

yes, because most of them are cast and are much cheaper to make. They have to be cavity back to make a cast club ‘nice’ to hit.

I still reckon it is better to learn with blades.

Full sets of irons are less than 200 quid in the sales at the moment.

I have seen some mountain bikes for £200 in the sales, doesn’t mean that they are any good though.

Don’t get too hung up on custom fitting, it is important but, you might find the standard loft and lie of clubs suits you already, it depends on your physical size, etc. I.e. If your 6’6 with hands like shovels they’ll need extending by an inch or so probably and the grips thickening. Some guys I know swear by custom fitting, I play off 1.7 and have always found stock settings to be fine for me.

Oddly not always true. I was pretty shocked to find that at 5’10” and a bit, with very average build and swing speed, I needed a set of clubs 3 degrees upright, with thicker grips than normal, and was on the verge of needing stiff shafts cos my swing speed is actually quicker than I thought it was! Custom fitted clubs immediately improved my ability to hit straight and more consistently.

Still doesn’t mean I’m any good mind as I play once in a blue moon!

thicker grips than normal

70% of touring pros have small hands.

Sort of implies that most people will need some level of build up under the grips to get the correct size.

I got some forged mizuno MX23 cavity backs off the bay. £150 and they are excellent.

My advice, bearing in mind you are a beginner:
– Some starter sets from the likes of Wilson are a good way to get started for about £250 all up (inc bag, putter etc). You can upgrade the driver etc later.

If you don’t want to go that route then:
– Consider buying second hand, golfers are serial upgraders and there are loads of good second hand clubs going for a song.
– Buy a modern driver, they are so forgiving these days. 460cc head, titanium, one aimed at mid-high handicappers.
– Hybrids instead of long irons – much easier. Even pro’s are carrying hybrids these days, there is just no reason not to. YE Yang, major winner, has hybrids down to 5 iron! I carry a 4i hybrid (Cobra Baffler) and love it. Any longer than that and I am hitting 5w or laying up.
– Buy a proper blade wedge, so much better than the cavity backed sand irons you get with most iron sets. Something like a 56degree, 10 degree bounce with a blade head and steel shaft should do you for an all purpose wedge. You should be able to get one brand new for £50.

Even pro’s are carrying hybrids these days

It is dangerous going by what the pros use as they are under pressure from the sponsoring equipment manufacturer to use what the manufacturers wants to market.

Useful thread as I have just started playing and am after a starter set.

Continually getting invited to corporate days now so am classing the lessons as business training so I can justify and afternoon a week to practice or have a lesson!

Go to your local Golf course and speak to the Professional in the shop

Sound advice but bear in mind that golf pro’s are like your LBS, there a good and bad ones. Find one you feel comfortable with or has been recommended and doesn’t talk technical bollox.

My advice would be to pick up a second hand set relatively cheaply (there were loads at under £100 last time I was in a shop, some of which were very very nice but not ‘fashionable’), take advice from the pro/shop assistant and go with what feels and looks right to you. Also investing in a couple of lessons will stand you in good stead. It is MUCH easier to get the fundamentals right from the start than to correct ingrained faults later.

At this stage you don’t need anything expensive or flash, just something the right length which will let you swing properly.

Edit: Just had a look at those Hogans on Ebay. Same as mine except the shafts and fantastic golf clubs but definitely NOT suitable as a first set of clubs.

A quote from a review site I was just looking at, on the Apex Plus irons – backs up what I was saying. I also heard an assistant pro give a similair explanation as the reason to buy some Srixon blades to an interested punter in a golf shop:

“If you’re looking for a set of forged clubs at a great price (cheap on ebay – i got mine for £100 in like new condition) then these are the clubs to buy.
I first started playing with cavity backs but then wanted to try something that would force my swing to get better (with practise of course). These clubs have been great for that purpose, they teach you how to strike the ball properly and give feedback on mis-hits, in other words you can tell what you were doing with the club face while making your golf swing and hitting the ball (very important if you want to improve your golf swing).”

It is dangerous going by what the pros use

This is a bit rich coming from a bloke advocating blades for a beginner because you’re using them on recommendation from a Pro.

Hybrids are easier to hit than long irons for the average golfer. By all means keep hacking away at a blade 4iron, I’ll take the reliability and versatility of my hybrid thanks.

Most used clubs in my bag:

– Putter (obviously)
– Driver
– Wedge
– Hybrid (Go to club for long shots out of short rough, punch shots, 2nd shot on par 5, 200yard par 3s…)

Most other clubs are lucky to come out of the bag more than once a round.

I agree with that to an extent Turnerguy but it depends how much time the OP is going to be able to devote to getting better + any help you can get is beneficial when starting off. I had a very quick look on Ebay and am staggered at how cheap some cracking sets of clubs are eg. these Pings or these which are a lovely set which would be great for a beginner and way beyond.

This is a bit rich coming from a bloke advocating blades for a beginner because you’re using them on recommendation from a Pro.

The pro didn’t recommend me to use blades, I already was.

it depends how much time the OP is going to be able to devote to getting better + any help you can get is beneficial when starting off

That’s the whole point – the clubs are helping you learn because they give you more feedback.

It is probably similair to arguments about learning to ride on a HT rather than a skills compensating 6 inch bouncer. The 6 inch bouncer will get you down something but you are not going to learn to ride properly on it.

oooh, me likey those Titleist irons linked by Woody.

The 6 inch bouncer will get you down something but you are not going to learn to ride properly on it.

I disagree with that having learned to play golf properly with a set of Slazenger cavity backs (they were quite a new thing way back then) and from there progressed to other perimeter weighted clubs quite successfully. The only clubs which caused me a problem were Pings, which were so ‘good’ that it was very difficult to shape the ball and took weeks of re-alignment to be comfortable with an ordinary set.

As the OP is taking up golf as an adult, he needs all the help he can get and any club which helps to get the ball airbourne and with consistency has to be a good thing. If he progresses to the point where he can hit a blade consistently, then fine, but until then he is much better off with a club which allows a greater margin of error. Are you also going to suggest that he finds some persimmon headed woods and an old blade putter?

Are you also going to suggest that he finds some persimmon headed woods?

could be a good idea to learn with – it is better to learn a decent swing to start with than a duffers swing that only works because you are using some cavity back ‘skills compensators’.

When the Callaway Great Big Berthas first came out my regular playing partner bought one and then proceeded to lose a lot of distance and accuracy as he tried to belt the ball rather than swing the club.

The forgiveness and lack of feel from the club was to blame.

If you only consider the equipment, then consider how players like Nicklaus and Palmer started off, let alone the hickory shaft users before them!

As a beginner (as others have suggested) the club is largely immaterial, as long as its metal and has a reasonable sized face…..its the swing that matters. You can hit the most appalling shots with the finest equipment ever made, but also hit the finest shots with some of the cheaper clubs on the market.

Get a book, watch you tube videos, take a 6 session lesson with a Pro…..and once you can break 90, ask the question again!

FWIW, I brought out an old Hogan blade putter as it looked so lovely, but found I was hopeless with it, despite normally being a good putter. If you didn’t hit it dead centre, the result was crap!

However I continued with it for a few rounds and when I went back to my normal perimeter weighted putter, I hit the ball much more purely than before.

Just need something so start a thread on lawn bowls now.

And free bus passes.

However I continued with it for a few rounds and when I went back to my normal perimeter weighted putter, I hit the ball much more purely than before

Just as I was saying – practise with the equipment that ‘punishes’ you for not using the correct technique, or at least gives you enough feedback to tell that you are doing wrong.

This is particularly important for first learning the swing – you don’t want to learn with clubs that allow you to be sloppy or you will have a sloppy swing – and correcting those bad habits later will be very difficult.

Plus if you are learning at a range you will have the problem of range balls to cope with, so the more feedback you get, the better.

Decent Mizunos for under 200 quid Turnerguy – hardly likely to recommend tosh am I. Mizunos at onlinegolf. I like your choice of bike, but I’d give up golf within a month if you were advising.

I might dig out some putty balls and play on a sheep field as well, in my tweeds.

cb – I take it that you will agree that Mizuno MP53s are good clubs?

Hogan Apex Plus are extremely similair, or possibly better, and cheaper 2nd hand.

I am also not recommending all blades as some as indeed difficult to hit.

I had some Titleist 681s (as Tiger used to use and Nike had to copy when he joined them) and they have a very small sweet spot. But that is not the case with the hogan apex blades I am recommending).