The way our bodies are put together, combined with the angles of the golf swing (not flat, like baseball), almost makes a slice the natural stroke to hit. No wonder so many golfers slice. It’s so easy to do.

You could cure your slice by learning to swing differently. It’s not hard to do, but it does take work, and who has time for that? Or, you could buy the right golf ball. Like the New Polara golf ball.

This ball is made with a dimple pattern that minimizes spin. If you align the pattern the right way when you tee it up, the simple physics built into the surface of the ball helps it go much straighter.

Actually, this ball is not new. It first came out in 1977, but was banned by the USGA in 1981 and the ball disappeared. Last year the ball came on the market again.

Just two things you might need to know about it. First, the ball is illegal for any round where the rules matter, such as tournaments or establishing a handicap.

Second, you get the low-spin advantage only on the tee, since that’s the only time you can guarantee the dimple pattern will be aligned. But if you’re going to use this ball, you don’t care too much about the rules, so go ahead and line it up whenever you want to. Just don’t tell anyone I said it’s OK.

Some golfers want to know if there is a golf ball that won’t slice, but will still spin around the green. This would be the best of all worlds. Unfortunately, no. We live in a world of trade-offs. Get a little more of this, and you have to give up a little of that. Nature requires a balance.

You can use a ball that minimizes spin (legally) but as it won’t spin so much off your driver, but neither will it spin so much off your wedge. The opposite is true, of course, If you want a ball that dances a jig on the green, it’s going to exaggerate any spin you put on it from the tee or the fairway.

For higher-handicpap golfers, I would recommend getting a low-spin ball. Keeping the ball in play from tee to green is the best way to keep your score down as you learn to control the ball off your swing. Once you begin to break 90 regularly, you should switch to a spin ball, sometimes called a Tour ball, as your swing improves and you learn to get a more refined short game.

Play a round with a Polara just for fun, but if you’re serious about developing your skills, get a ball that rewards what you have learned to do.

See also Buying the right golf ball

My new book, The Golfing Self, is now available at www.therecreationalgolfer.com. It will change everything about the way you play.

This post is not: what I think the best equipment out there is.
This post is: how to get the most appropriate equipment for your game.

One thing about golf is that it offers more equipment options that any other sport. If you play softball, for example, you need a bat and a glove, and even a novice could find ones that fit after a few minutes of looking at the local sporting goods store.

Golf? There are enough different clubs and balls out there to confuse even an experienced golfer. Here’s how to find the equipment that is best for you.

Let’s say you’re just taking up the game. Borrow a set of clubs. Hunt the thrift stores to find a set with a bag. It doesn’t matter that much, really, what you come up with, but get a few woods, some irons, and a putter. Go to the local variety store and buy some golf balls that cost about $15 a dozen. That will be all you need to start playing golf to see if you like it.

If after a few months you think golf is here to stay, then you definitely need better equipment. You could buy a set of used golf clubs from a pro shop or second-hand sporting goods store, or you could buy a new set. The used option would be cheaper, about half the price of a new set, and would be satisfactory until you decided to make a commitment to golf as your pastime of choice.

If you decide to go new, stick with the major manufacturers. The quality of their clubs is guaranteed. Other manufacturers make what are called “knock-offs,” which are clubs designed only to look like a major brand. Their playability and durability are poor, and they are a waste of your money.

About half the name brand clubs sold over the Internet are counterfeit, according to one pro shop owner I talked to. Buy from a pro shop or a reputable sorting goods store.

Also, have a fitting when you buy new clubs.

As for golf balls, there’s no reason to play one of the high-end balls that professionals play. It takes a much higher swing speed than the large majority of recreational golfers have to take advantage of the ball’s design. Stick with a ball in the $25/dozen range.

Golf balls come in three basic types: distance, accuracy, and spin. A distance ball will go farther, but only 5-7 yards at best. Accuracy balls spin less and thus go straighter, but they won’t cure your slice. Spin balls, also called tour balls, stop faster (run less) on the green, but their higher spin rate might exacerbate your slice.

Buy a box of three of each kind of ball, play a round with each, and stick with the one you like the best. That’s really the only way to decide.

So far, you have a set of irons and some golf balls. You still need a putter, some wedges, and a driver (maybe). First, the putter.

About one-third of your shots will be played with this club, so you should definitely get one fitted when you buy it. There are so many design schemes, the only thing you can do is try one of each to see which one feels best in your hands, gives you confidence over the ball, and is easiest to swing. Appearance is important here. If the appearance of a putter is distracting, don’t buy it.

You should have a sand wedge in the 54- to 56-degree range. This club is designed not only for escaping bunkers, but for pitching onto the green from shorter distances.

The question of how many wedges you should carry is the subject of another article, but a sand wedge, in addition to the pitching wedge that comes with your set of irons, will be enough for most golfers.

Now, the driver. Most recreational golfers should not have one. This is a difficult club to hit, and it creates more problems than it solves.

Instead, buy a 14-degree fairway wood and use that off the tee. You will get all the distance you need, and hit the ball into many more fairways than you ever will with a driver, at least until you become a very good player.

My new book, The Golfing Self, is now available at www.therecreationalgolfer.com. It will change everything about the way you play.

The composition of your bag plays a heavy role in the score you shoot. You know your game and the shots you hit to get the ball around the course. The clubs you put in your bag are the ones you hit those shots with. Clubs that are meant for shots you don’t hit, get left out.

When I started playing (c. 1960), this was the standard set:

Woods: 1,3,4
Irons: 2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9
Wedges: P, S
Putter

Look in anyone’s bag and that’s what you’d find. Woods were sold as a set, and the set was 1,2,3,4. Smart players would swap out their 2-wood for a sand wedge. That was about the only decision you had to make.

Times have changed. Higher-numbered fairway woods are no longer just for the ladies. Raymond Floyd won the Masters in 1976 by trading his 2-iron for a 5-wood so he could float the ball onto the green on the par 5s. Everybody noticed. Tom Kite started playing with three wedges instead of two and became the tour’s leading money winner. Everybody noticed that, too. And then came hybrid irons.

So let’s refine the club selection rule. To score, you have to get the ball up to the green as quickly as you can. From there you have to get the ball into the hole as quickly as you can. The clubs you put in your bag are the ones that let you perform both tasks the best and the easiest.

From the tees I play (6,400 yards or less) I can reach all the par 4s in two, but none of the par 5s. There’s no need for me to load up on the long end. Once I get up to the green, I want to get down in two strokes more often than not. That might just mean two putts, but more often it means a chip and a putt. I want to find a way to make those chips and putts as easy to get as I can, because I set up more pars from greenside than from 160 yards.

So, I apply the Iron Rule to the short game: vary your distances by using one swing and differently-lofted clubs. This is how we play from the fairway. Around the green we can use one swing and differently-lofted wedges to get the ball close from varying distances. You get more predictable results from one swing with different clubs than from different swings with one club.

This, now, is my playing set:

Woods: Driver
Hybrids: 2,3,4,5
Irons: 6,7,8,9
Wedges: P,G,S,L (4-degree gaps)
Putter

Now I can still hit a 5-iron, but it’s an effort, and the 4-iron, too, but it’s a real effort. So out they went and in came the hybrids. No fairway wood. Haven’t missed it in three years.

Yes, there is a sense of loss when you know you’ll never see that solidly hit 5-iron arcing through the sky toward the flag again. But when you hit the same shot more easily and more often with a hybrid iron, you get over it in a hurry.

Four wedges? You would not believe how close I can get the ball to the hole by having the right club in my hand, and I don’t spend days at the range practicing.

I’m not finished, though. I’m looking at a 64-degree wedge, because sometimes I have to ease up with my lob wedge. That would mean taking out a hybrid. All I would do is look at the length of the longest par-3 holes on the course I would be playing that day and leave out the 2 or 3 that I wouldn’t need.

Never forget that golf is about getting the ball in the hole in as few strokes as possible. There’s nothing in the rules that says you can’t make that as easy as possible, too.

My new book, The Golfing Self, is now available at www.therecreationalgolfer.com. It will change everything about the way you play.

There’s a rumor going around that blades are for low-handicappers only. Middle- and high-handicappers should stick with cavity-back irons. Game improvement irons. Like most rumors, this one doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.

Blades, or more correctly, muscleback irons, have a fairly flat back with extra weight on the bottom of the clubhead, which helps get the ball airborne. The weight distribution of a muscleback, though, lets a mishit be a mishit. A CB, with weight distributed all around the perimeter, tends to smooth out mishits and keep the ball going straight. This works against the intentions of players who like to work the ball. They tend to be the better players, and they use blades. Hence the rumor.

But there are other reasons why blades have a devoted following. More weight is concentrated behind the ball because the clubhead is smaller. This means that when the ball is struck it has more authority, and the sweet spot is thus much sweeter. You also get more feedback with a blade, since you can feel exactly where on the clubface the ball was struck.

For a long time, every golfer played blades because that was the only type of club to be manufactured. Unless you have good hand-eye coordination, it is hard to hit the sweet spot, or sufficiently near it every time. Hence the introduction of game improvement (GI) irons.

But at the same time, hybrid irons were introduced. They replaced the difficult-to-hit long irons, which were the clubs that made people shy away from blades. Many golfers now carry nothing longer than a 6- or 5-iron. The longest iron in my bag is a 6-iron.

It is not that hard to hit a short iron in the center, because the swing is not that big, so blades at this end of the set are now a reasonable option. The benefits of blades listed above are now available to you.

No golfer should be reluctant to try out a set of blades and find out how it feels to hit them. True, there is a bit of snob appeal — they are the sports cars of golf. But there are serious benefits to using them and you should not be dissuaded unless you have tried them for yourself.

Visit www.therecreationalgolfer.com

December 1, 2011 update:

A few days ago, I stumbled across this web page which showed that while blades have a smaller sweet spot than CB irons, the sweet spot on a blade is much sweeter than on a CB iron. There’s a lot to be said for that, especially if you have nothing longer than a 6-iron in your bag, since you will hitting the sweet spot more often than with the longer irons.

If you would like to try a set of blades, I recommend Ben Hogan Apex models. I have a set of the 1999 Apex irons, the last blade model the Hogan company put out, and a set of Apex Red Lines, built in 1988. I bought the 1999s new, but I got the Red Lines from a dealer on the web for under $200 and they were in top-notch condition. They are my everyday clubs now. The Apex Grind model (1990) is also highly thought of. At his death, Hogan himself had the 1979 Apex II (white cameo) irons in his bag.

[In 2010, this was good idea. Now, we have satellite and laser range-finding equipment that does part of this a lot better.]

I’m writing a longer article I plan to put on my golf tips web site, The Recreational Golfer, but I want to let you in on the good part before I post it there.

The idea is that the pros have a yardage book that tells them the yardage to the front of the green and to the pin on every hole, from every prominent feature from tee to green. You should make one of your favorite course for yourself.

Now you can get yardages from the fairway off sprinkler heads, but the yardages you might not be getting are from 60 yards in. This is the range where you need to know most what your exact yardage is, and where the course gives you the least help. Sprinkler heads run out, and you don’t know where the pin is on the green, yardage-wise.

There are two things you can do. First, get a notebook and make a diagram of each hole from 60 yards out, including the green complex. Find landmarks off to the side that you can use to step off yardages so you know whether you’re 40 or 45 yards from the front of the green, for example.

The second thing is to start marking on the green part of your diagram, the location of the pin that as you find it each time you play. When you get to the green, step off its distance from the front, on a line going straight to the back of the green, and not directly to the pin.

After a few visits, you will find that the green staff has only a few locations where they like to put the pin, and you can now know the exact distance to each one from any place on the hole.

This will not only help you from close in, but it will help you from the fairway, too, and you will know exactly which club to use and exactly how much distance to put on or take off given the club you selected, given knowledge of the pin’s location.

Unfortunately, you’ll get no help from the pro shop, and that location isn’t always easy to determine from the fairway. Solution? Bring a small pair of binoculars. Check the pin placement while someone else is hitting.

I played with the new irons today. Ben Hogan Apex Red Lines, c. 1989. They’re wonderful. Glad I bought them. Great balance, great feel, smaller sweet spot than my 2003 Apex’s, but what a sweet spot.

I figured since I would be playing with 22-year-old irons, I should play with a driver of similar vintage, too, so I brought along my Wilson 4275. Laminated maple. Head smaller than your fairway metal. Shaft two inches shorter than my metal driver. Weighs two ounces more.

It took a few holes to get the idea, but I was hitting it straight, not as high, but it ran and ran. I lost distance, but not so much it affected how I played any of the holes on this course.

It’s going to stay in the bag. The shorter shaft and heavier weight somehow combine to give me more feel of the club throughout the swing, and swing in a more controlled way.

My two-putter experiment is working out nicely. I use an Acushnet Bullseye for everything except the shorties. For the ones about four feet and in, I use a Wilson Billy Casper mallet.

I guess this all means you can be creative with the clubs you use, and pick the ones that make you feel the best about getting the ball into the hole. And why not? Your game belongs to you, not the equipment manufacturers.

My new book, The Golfing Self, is now available at www.therecreationalgolfer.com. It will change everything about the way you play.

I got a new set of irons today. Ben Hogan Apex Redline, built in 1988. So they’re not new, but they have a reputation as being the pinnacle of the Apex line of Hogan irons.

I bought them on eBay a few weeks ago, and took them straight to the pro shop after they arrived to get them fitted (+1 inch in the shafts, new lie angles). New grips come with that, too.

So this morning I picked them up took them to the course to play a round. Wow. Triple wow. They have such superb balance, and the sweet spot is sweet beyond belief.

I think I’m going to like these clubs.

Visit www.therecreationalgolfer.com

I bought a new set of irons today, off eBay. They’re Ben Hogan Apex Red Line, made in 1988. Can’t wait for them to get here. I play 1998 Apex’s, and I thought it would be a good idea to have practice set and a playing set.

Who knows? The Red Lines might turn out to be the playing set.

Don’t think I’m getting carried away. I know of a guy who has 25 sets of Hogan irons. Collector, maybe, I don’t know.

But what’s the big deal about Apex’s? I’ll tell you.

When you hit the ball just right it feels like you didn’t hit it. Maybe like you hit a stick of soft butter. There’s this soft, delicate thud, and the ball takes off like a rocket. I’m not kidding. You ask someone else who plays them what it feels like when you hit it right, and they’ll say, “Buttery.” For some reason, it’s the word we all come up with.

They’re also the best-looking clubs out there, too. The tuxedos of the iron world.

Every now and then I get paired up with someone I haven’t played with before, he sees the Hogans in my bag, and he goes “(sigh) I used to have a set of those.” I ask, “Did you like them?” He says, “Loved ’em.” I think, “Then why don’t you still have them??!!”

Today marks two more shopping months until my birthday. I’ll call these an early birthday present.

My new book, The Golfing Self, is now available at www.therecreationalgolfer.com. It will change everything about the way you play.

I like putters. I like finding old ones and even use them. My first good putter was a Wright & Ditson Cash-in that I got in about 1960. It was commonly used in the 1940s and 50s and is the kind Horton Smith, no slouch on the green, used.

When I was growing up, the Bulls Eye was the putter to have. All the pros used one, and all the amateurs who wanted to be cool had one. It was the Scotty Cameron Newport of its day. I found one in the used putter bin last fall and bought it ($9.99). It was a little bent up, so my pro straightened it out and it’s the putter I’m currently using.

I love it. It’s pretty brass color is unique (my snob appeal) and it just feels like it puts me into partnership with the ball.

A few days ago I was browsing through another used putter bin and found a Wilson Billy Casper model (also $9.99). This is a mallet putter that he used to putt the lights out. It to feels very nice, and the rebound from the sweet spot is fabulous. I might play a few rounds with it, but I’ll stick to the Bulls-Eye unless I get around in 28 putts with the Casper.

Old golf clubs put me in contact with golf history, and that’s part of the enjoyment of golf for me. We’ve gone way past wooden drivers and the clanky irons, but the old putters still work, and I’ll keep looking for them.

My new book, The Golfing Self, is now available at www.therecreationalgolfer.com. It will change everything about the way you play.