A Beginner's Guide to Golf Equipment

Golf can seem overwhelming when you start to get into it.

When you first start playing, there is a lot to take in. Your mind is flooded with new terminology, and you quickly start to be consumed with ways to hit the golf ball further and more consistently.

Getting your own golf clubs can add to the overwhelming feeling, even though getting new golf clubs is exciting, especially if they are your first set.

Buying new golf clubs feels similar to purchasing a new car, as you are dazzled by the latest offerings from the manufacturers. However, buying clubs can throw up many questions.

What clubs do you buy, how much should I be spending, and how do you know you are getting the right clubs for you?

Our guide will lay out some principles to help you understand the purpose of each club and explain the features and benefits of clubs designed to help new golfers get the most out of their play on the course.

Join us as we help you decipher:

• The Driver
• Fairway Woods
• Hybrids
• Iron Sets
• Wedges
• Putters
• What is Custom Fitting, and Can it Benefit a Beginner Golfer?

The Driver

The golf driver is the longest club in your golf bag and is designed to hit the ball the furthest.

Drivers could be classed as the flagship clubs that manufacturers produce as they incorporate the most advanced technologies to help us hit the ball further and straighter.

Many of the current crop of drivers are constructed using carbon fibre. Its lightweight properties help deliver more clubhead speed and allow engineers to create different playing characteristics by altering the club’s centre of gravity.

Drivers can be built with the centre of gravity placed as far back and low in the head. Having the centre of gravity pulled as far away from the driver’s face helps create more spin, which can help get the ball airborne and stay in the air longer for golfers who don’t swing the club fast.

Having the centre of gravity placed as far away from the face and low in the clubhead also makes the driver more forgiving and stable.

Drivers like the TaylorMade Qi10 Max were launched this year, and they focus on helping golfers hit the ball straighter. The TaylorMade driver has its internal weight strategically positioned thanks to the extensive use of carbon fibre in the head’s construction, which helps prevent the head from twisting through impact.

This is an important feature as hitting the ball out the toe or heel area of the face can open or close the driver’s head, leading to inaccurate shots. Creating a head that’s resilient to twisting on off-centre hits helps keep the ball flying straighter.

Some manufacturers, like PXG and Cobra, have weight ports on the driver’s sole, which are positioned in the heel, toe, and rear of the sole. Interchangeable weights can be placed in specific configurations to help manipulate the ball’s flight and give more predictable shots.

If you slice the ball (for a right-handed golfer, a slice is a shot that can start right of your target and continue to curve right), the clubface will likely be open when you contact the ball.

Positioning a heavier weight in the heel weight port of the driver will allow the toe to catch up with the heel, leading to the face being delivered a little straighter into the ball and reducing your slice.

When you are starting, hitting the ball consistently is difficult. Hitting the golf ball out the middle of the clubface produces the fastest ball speeds, resulting in your longest shots. Hitting the ball in the toe or heel area reduces ball speed, meaning your shots won’t go as far.

Manufacturers have worked to improve clubfaces using AI in models like the Callaway Paradym Ai Smoke Max. If you hit the ball in the toe or heel area, the ball will fly as far as a shot out the middle of the clubface.

Driver loft is important. Better players can use drivers with low loft (8 or 9 degrees) because they generate high clubhead speed. When you are new to golf, it’s rare that you will generate high clubhead speeds, so opting for a driver with more loft (10 to 12 degrees) will help maximise the carry distance for your shots, giving you longer drives.

Fairway Woods

Most golfers will carry at least a three wood in their bag. The average loft of a three wood is 15 degrees and can be used off the tee if you are struggling with your driver or the hole you are playing requires accuracy over distance. The three wood can also be used for long approach shots into greens.

Manufacturers place similar levels of technology and materials in their three woods and other fairway woods, which can help to create a consistent look and feel with your driver.

A good three wood for beginner golfers will feature a maxed-out head size, making it look more friendly when you address the ball. The bigger head profile means that the manufacturers have been able to position the centre of gravity as far from the face as possible, making the club more forgiving and stable.

The three wood will also feature a shallow face, which helps you get the ball airborne from the fairway or rough more effectively.

Golfers can also carry five and seven woods in their bags. These golf clubs have more loft, allowing you to hit higher approach shots into greens. Although the heads get smaller, you see more loft at address, which helps make these clubs look more easy to hit.

Hybrids

Golf hybrids are a popular alternative to difficult-to-hit long irons. A hybrid isn’t as big as a fairway wood, but the basic design principle is a head that is a mix of iron and fairway wood with the centre of gravity positioned low and in the rear of the head.

Some hybrids will share materials such as carbon fibre with their driver and fairway wood siblings and can also share moveable weights and adjustable hosels to dial in ball flight and shot shape.

Hybrids are versatile. They can be used for approach shots and off the tee, and they are better for getting the ball out of the rough than their iron equivalents.

While many golfers will use a hybrid as an equivalent to three and four irons, you can also get hybrids in identical lofts to five and six irons.

The lower centre of gravity in a hybrid makes the ball fly higher and looks less intimidating at address than the equivalent long iron.

Irons

Irons come in a variety of guises, so choosing the correct iron type when you are new to the game is important.

For newer golfers, an iron that offers forgiveness as well as distance will be a good combination.

The ideal iron will have a slightly bigger head profile and a wide sole that helps to push the centre of gravity down, helping to get the ball in the air more easily. The iron is also likely to feature a cavity back. This is where material is removed from the rear of the club, helping to distribute the weight out to the perimeter of the head, creating a more forgiving club to off-centre hits.

Irons suited to beginner golfers can have multi-material construction, which adds to the iron’s overall performance. For example, the face can be constructed of soft forged steel, which helps to create exceptional feel and feedback on shots. Titanium can be used inside or outside the head, which helps create the ideal centre of gravity within each iron.

Multi-material irons can also utilise foam structures in the hollow created between the face and the back of the iron. The foam can help create a trampoline effect between the ball and clubface, which can improve ball speeds off the face, leading to more distance.

Manufacturers have also created clubfaces that provide more consistent ball speeds regardless of where you strike the ball, similar to what we have talked about with drivers.

Iron sets can consist of seven irons (four iron to pitching wedge). However, many players will drop the four iron in favour of an easier-to-hit hybrid or fairway wood. Five irons can even be dropped in favour of an equivalent hybrid, which can be useful for beginners as the hybrid would prove to be easier to hit.

Wedges

Golf wedges are considered scoring clubs. They can be used for approach shots, pitching, chipping, and bunker play.

Creating a consistent wedge game comes down to having consistent loft gapping between your wedges.

Many golfers carry three wedges along with their pitching wedge. These wedges are:

• Gap wedge, lofting between 50 and 53 degrees.
• Sand iron, lofting between 54 and 56 degrees.
• Lob wedge, lofting between 58 and 60 degrees.

Wedges tend to focus on feel and precision, so you won’t see much in the way of technology in them. However, some wedges offer what is known as full groove faces. This simply means that the grooves start in the heel area as normal and extend to the end of the face, as seen in the TaylorMade Hi-Toe 4 or Cleveland Smart Sole Full Face wedge.

Bounce and grind are prominently featured in any conversation around wedges. Bounce and grind refer to how well the wedge interacts with the ball and ground at impact. Choosing the right bounce and grind can also be dictated by the different types of golf courses you might play or, eventually, the different types of shots you want to hit when pitching and chipping around the greens.

Putters

Putting is one department where choosing the right model comes down to personal preferences. You don’t have to have played the game for long to pick up a putter and instinctively know if you like how the golf putter looks and feels, which are important factors in being a successful putter.

Technology does play its part in putters. Mallet-style or high-MOI putters could be a good starting point if you are new to the game. Mallet and high-MOI putters are designed to reduce the putter twisting and return the clubface square at impact. If the clubface is square at impact, it’s more likely the ball will start on your intended line, helping you improve your chances of holing more putts.

What is Custom Fitting, and Can it Benefit a Beginner Golfer?

When we go clothes or shoe shopping, we all know what sizes to look for. We do this because we all come in different shapes, so not every size will be right for us.

The same principle applies in golf. We are all built differently and swing the club differently, therefore, we can’t all use the same golf equipment.

The process of custom fitting involves discovering your ideal golf club specifications, which will help you deliver more powerful and accurate golf shots on the course.

Professional club fitters generally also hold a teaching qualification gained through the Professional Golfers Association (PGA) but have decided to concentrate on fitting clubs for all levels of players and will have years of experience in doing so.

The start of a fitting session will involve a conversation with the fitter about where you need the most help. Don’t worry if you are still new to the game; every little detail will help the fitter determine where to offer the best advice.

You’ll then have the chance to hit some shots. While you are doing this, a device called a launch monitor will collect data on the shots you are hitting. Launch monitors are sophisticated devices that use high-speed photography to capture the moment of impact between the clubface and the golf ball.

Some of the data a launch monitor captures which is useful for the fitter are:

• Launch angle
• Spin rates
• Clubhead speed
• Ball speed
• The angle that the clubface makes contact with the ball
• The path of the clubface when it makes contact with the ball

The launch monitor will also provide data on how far the ball carried in the air and the total distance the golf ball travels. Additionally, the launch monitor will record the accuracy of your shots. This is known as shot dispersion, represented by placing a circle around all the shots you hit with a club. The bigger the circle, the less accurate you are.

When you are starting out, a fitter will look for solutions that will help improve your consistency and accuracy when hitting the golf ball.

The fitter can pair a clubhead with a shaft that could help you. You can hit shots with the suggested combination, and the fitter can measure improvements in the results produced by the launch monitor.

The process then involves fine-tuning the clubhead and shaft combination to achieve the best results.

The process benefits you by helping you understand more about how you deliver the clubface into the ball and its effect on your golf shots.

You can see improvements in distance and accuracy during the fitting session, which is exciting to see. All golfers, regardless of experience and playing ability, want to hit the ball further and straighter!

You have a detailed explanation from the fitter on the setup of the clubs that will work best for you.

You can order your clubs and have them built and delivered to you.

As you improve, you can always revisit the fitter, who can alter your clubs so they continue serving your needs.

When you start to play golf, you are joining a growing number of newcomers to a game that is already shared and enjoyed by millions of people across the country.

As you learn more about the sport, you’ll start to think about the clubs you need for your game. Choosing golf clubs is exciting because there are so many different manufacturers out there producing high-quality golf equipment.

The challenge can be choosing what’s best for your needs. You can pick up lots of advice from fellow golfers, but you have to be careful. You can spend a lot of money on clubs that don’t work for you.

Remember, we all come in different shapes, sizes, and abilities, so there is no “one size fits all” answer.

Custom golf clubs can help solve the puzzles of what golf clubs will work best for you.

Spending 90 minutes with a qualified fitter will leave you with the insight and confidence you need that your golf equipment will perform and help you shoot better scores.

At Nine By Nine Golf, we have helped many newcomers to the game make the right decisions about what equipment they need through a custom golf club fitting.

Our programs offer complete flexibility. We offer tailored fitting sessions for drivers, fairway woods, hybrids, irons, and wedges.

If you already have some golf clubs, you could also book a session to analyse how effective your current golf clubs are; you can also have a session where we do a full analysis followed by a fitting session for a complete new set from driver to wedges.

You can book a fitting session through the Nine by Nine Golf website, where you can also browse our extensive range of fully customisable golf clubs.

We’d be happy to help if you have any more questions about the benefits of custom-fitted golf clubs and how they can help you become a better player faster.