Best Golf Clubs for Beginners

If you’re a beginner golfer and you’re searching for the best golf clubs to get your golf journey started, it can be a daunting venture.

There are a ton of options, golf terminology, descriptors, technology and more that can be difficult to understand if you are new to the game of golf. It shouldn’t be a barrier to entry, though, so we have put together a list of what you should look for and how you can decipher which clubs are the best for beginner golfers.

What you first need to acknowledge is your price point and what you’re willing to spend on a set of clubs and which clubs you need to buy. Once you figure out the price point, you can narrow down your list to eliminate clubs that might be too costly, or clubs that don’t feature enough technology for your golf journey.

Figuring out which clubs you’ll need is easy once you know what you’re supposed to have. While playing a round of golf, you can have just 14 total clubs in your bag. You can choose which clubs and the combination, but can’t have more than 14.

Typically, you would look at drivers, fairway woods, hybrids, irons, wedges and putters and make up a set based on what your needs are.

If you have none of those, then you need to start from scratch and can either look at buying individual clubs or a package set, which would include a bag and anywhere from 10 to 14 clubs. Package sets can be a good option to get everything you need in one swoop and gives you some brand consistency.

However, not every club is going to fit your game and you might want to look at different brands throughout your bag. Let’s look at individual club categories and what beginner golfers should look for when deciding on the best golf clubs.

DRIVERS FOR BEGINNERS

Drivers are going to be the longest and most difficult club to hit given its makeup and the fact that it has the lowest loft of any clubs. You use your driver off the tee and are looking for a club that maximizes forgiveness, stability and distance.

Manufacturers make drivers for beginners that help in all of those categories and can help you keep the ball in-bounds during your rounds. They accomplish that by playing around with center of gravity, weighting, artificial intelligence in the club face, shaping and what is called MOI.

When a manufacturer says their club has high MOI, they are talking about moment of inertia, which measures a club’s resistance to twisting on off-center hits. Hitting a club on the heel or toe will cause twisting in the club and will create spin on the ball that will either make it go right or left.

A golf club with high MOI will help reduce that twisting and reduce that spin to help the golf ball go straighter rather than spinning right or left.

The sweet spot is closest to the center of the club face and will give you maximum results, but manufacturers can manipulate parts of the club to make them more forgiving for when you do miss the center of the face.

Center of gravity also factors in to forgiveness, launch and stability and you will typically see a driver with a low center of gravity when they are more forgiving model. A low center of gravity will help get the ball in the air and will typically be easier for a beginner golfer to hit depending on their skill level.

There are also drivers that can help beginners minimize their miss based on what you’re trying to accomplish. For instance, if a driver has a draw bias, that means it’s weighted and shaped to help minimize a slice and for a right-handed golfer, would help them hit the ball from right to left.

Here are a few examples of drivers that would work best for beginners.

IRONS FOR BEGINNERS

Similar to drivers, beginner golfers should look for irons that are forgiving and help with distance. Golf club manufacturers make different categories of irons, including game improvement and super game improvement irons.

Unless you are a prodigy and pick up on the golf swing immediately, most beginners will likely want to look for a game improvement iron. These irons will feature technology to make the clubs more forgiving, launch higher and fly straighter.

The manufacturers accomplish that through offset near the hosel, weighting, shaping and creating a face that helps create fast ball speeds. That will ultimately help you have more fun as you learn the game.

For example, Callaway’s Quantum Max irons are game improvement clubs that are built to promote more solid, consistent and controlled shots. How they did that was by using an undercut cavity for higher launch and more forgiveness on the face, as well as an Ai-Optimized face design that expands the sweet spot for golfers that don’t hit the center of the face.

Callaway also used a tri-sole design, which essentially gives the sole of the club a shape and design that helps the golfer move the club through the turf easier.

Callaway positioned mass at the edges of the clubhead, which also makes for a more forgiving club.

So, when you’re looking for irons, you want to look for clubs with perimeter weighting for stability, a sole that allows for easy turf interaction and typically something with a cavity in the back of the club.

TaylorMade’s Qi irons have taken a unique approach on the game improvement iron in that the brand wanted to bring some premium aspects to a game improvement iron. The TaylorMade R&D team also found that some game improvement irons exaggerate the right miss for a right-handed golfer.

The way that some game improvement irons are constructed, it can make it easier to hit the ball right than a golfer would want. TaylorMade constructed the Qi irons in a way that controls face flexibility and eliminate the spin that would cause a slice or cut.

WEDGES FOR BEGINNERS

Wedges can be difficult to navigate, because there are so many options with loft, bounce and grind. Let’s start by defining what those all mean before we get into the details of clubs.

The loft is the angle of the club face and makes a difference for how far the ball will go and how high the ball will go. In a wedge, a 60-degree wedge will typically launch the ball higher and will go a shorter distance than a 56-degree wedge would.

A pitching wedge will usually be in the area of 43-degrees to 41-degrees in game improvement irons. A sand wedge would fall into the 54 to 58-degree range, although you can absolutely use a 60-degree out of the sand. A lob wedge would range from 58 to 64-degrees.

To figure out which wedge lofts you want, you should test them and figure out which lofts you like the best. You typically want to gap the wedges out by loft to make sure you don’t have any distance or shot gaps in your game.

For instance, if you have a 58-degree wedge, it would make sense to have a 54-degree wedge and a 50-degree wedge, as well, to have four degrees between the wedges. That would give you good variety and allow you to hit an even range of distances.

When it comes to bounce, the bounce is essentially the angle between the ground and the leading edge of the wedge. A higher bounce wedge – around 10 to 14-degrees – would look as though the leading edge sits off the ground.

Whereas a low bounce wedge would have a leading edge that would sit closer to the ground. A higher bounce wedge is typically for a golfer with a steep swing that takes bigger divots. They are typically for golfers who need help getting through the turf. A low bounce is for a golfer with a shallower swing who doesn’t take big divots or any divots at all.

Grinds are a bit more complicated as each manufacturer has different names and descriptions for a grind. But the grind is referring to the shape of the sole and its geometry that will help a golfer get through the turf. There are different shapes and positions that companies will use to help a variety of swings.

The best way to figure out which one you fit into would be to test them and get fitted for wedges.

You can typically look for cavity back wedges as more forgiving options, similar to the Cleveland CBZ, Callaway CB12, COBRA King-X or a specialized club similar to the PING BunkR.

PACKAGE SETS FOR BEGINNERS

The other option for beginner golfers, if you don’t want to buy individual clubs, is a package set. It can be a cost friendly option that gets you everything you’d need to start playing golf as most package sets include a bag, a putter, wedges, irons, fairway woods and drivers.

Package sets will come in a variety of forms and are made for men, women and juniors in their own categories as they are tailored for different needs.

It makes it easier as most are also in the game improvement category and will offer forgiving options throughout the set.

These are all great options for beginners and a good place to start if you’re looking for the best options for golf clubs. No matter what you purchase, we always recommend getting fitted and trying out the clubs before you buy.