There’s a current article on the Golf World site about how to choose the clubs that go in your bag.* With all due respect to Golf Digest, and speaking as someone who plays golf and whose income does not depend on advertising from equipment manufacturers, here are my thoughts.
1. “Anybody still fighting a slice is merely being pigheaded” If you’re fighting a slice, get a lesson or two, and practice until it’s gone. Take responsibility for your own errors instead of asking an adjustable club to fix it for you. While you’re at it, take responsibility for your life instead of asking someone else to fix it for you.
2. “Understand the effects of adjustablilty” If you adjust a clubface more open, you deloft the club? OK, I won’t argue. Just show me.
3. “Driver technology is trickling down to fairway woods” This is about adjustable fairway woods. See #1.
4. “Brand loyalty can have a negative effect” True. When I bought my irons, I tried out eight different brands. Only two felt right. The ones I rejected are played by lots of touring pros, but they weren’t the clubs for me.
5. “It’s OK to have “mongrel’ clubs in your bag” True. Whatever gets the ball in the hole. I have a 56-degree Ben Hogan Sure-Out sand wedge in my bag that gets the ball out of the bunker, gets the ball out of heavy grass (there’s a lot of metal down there that will not be denied), and works great from the fairway. Sometimes I include a Ray Cook chipper.
6. “Unless you’re practicing eight hours a day, you have no business hitting muscleback blades” B***s***. Anyone can hit blades, and I think everyone should. GI irons are a compromise. Blades give you better feel of impact, and have a more rewarding (though smaller) sweet spot. You can play hybrids, 2-5, and blades, 6-PW, and do just fine. The only reason manufacturers tell you not to play blades is to get a return on all the money they’re pouring into something else.
7. “Better players are doing themselves an injustice if they don’t have one or two hybrids in their bag” True, true, true. These clubs are so easy to hit it’s almost cheating. There’s no reason for a recreational golfer to be carrying a 2-, 3-, or 4-iron anymore.
8. “Testing equipment needs to include time around the green” Very true. Buy your wedges and putter at a place that has a real green where you can hit balls. A big box store isn’t that place. Make sure you test golf balls, too, but that’s another article.
9. “Super Game Improvement irons aren’t just for Grandma anymore” See #6. They really want you to buy these clubs, don’t they?
10. “Simplicity and feel still have their place in putters” Oh, my. Putters these days look like they came off an alien spaceship. Do get fitted for a putter, but keep it simple. I play an Acushnet Bulls Eye, made in the early 1960s, and I do just fine.
Four rules about buying equipment:
1. Get it fitted.
2. Every so often, new equipment comes out that truly does make a difference. Hybrid irons, for example. The rest of it is the manufacturers trying to get their hands inside your wallet.
3. A $400 driver = eight lessons. The lessons will take more strokes off your game.
4. In the end, it’s the singer, not the song.
See also The Best Equipment for a Recreational Golfer
*April 28, 2019 – article no longer available online.
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