by Jerry Hitchcock

Created on: March 14, 2008

Whether you're a beginner or a seasoned pro, club selection is key to a player's ability to hit the kind of shots that make him or her satisfied with the golfing experience.

Beginners will characteristically try to get in on the cheap, finding a set of used clubs in the classifieds or a garage sale. The overwhelming majority of the time, the set won't fit the individual. A proper fitting set of clubs is probably the most important step to ensuring someone who has recently taken up the game will not only get enjoyment from their time spent on the course, but also gives the player a better chance to become a proficient golfer.

Pro shops at the golf course and basically anywhere that sells clubs (with the exception of most big-box stores) has someone on staff who can properly fit a set of clubs to the golfer.

Price is always an issue, and most salesman can give you the pros and cons of the different tiers of club set costs. Name-brand clubs are almost always made from higher-quality materials and will last much longer than 'knock-off' (clubs made to look like name-brand clubs) or lesser quality, less costly sets.

When a golfer makes contact with a ball, that little white dimpled object only makes contact with the club for a very small fraction of a second. When that contact occurs, the angle at which the clubs makes contact with the ball (horizontally, vertically and all the other angles in between) determines what angle the ball will launch into. Swing angles will come into play as the ball travels. The point is, if your clubs aren't properly fitted, the ball is not going where you intended, no matter how good your swing is.

To determine what set to purchase, the golfer needs to ask what their commitment level is to the sport. Will they play sparingly or do they see this as a lifestyle/past-time endeavor? Golfers who tend to play more than a few times a month will tend to want (and don't mind paying for) a high-quality set of sticks.

The occasional hacker, on the other hand, will tend to go for a low-buck set on the premise that "If I don't use them, it's alright: I don't have much invested in them anyway." This happens more often than not but remember - make sure that those clubs have been fitted or your shots will most likely shy away from your intended target most of the time.

Another issue to consider when picking out clubs are aesthetics. Some clubs (when looked down upon while addressing the ball) will make the golfer more confident than others about pulling off a certain shot. If a club doesn't look good to the golfer's eye, he or she probably won't ever gain the confidence needed to make consistent shots with a full set of those eyesores.

So look before you leap - consider a club or set of clubs for you game based on much more than price.

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