When you begin shopping for good golf equipment, you’ll find that if you know how and where to look, it can be a very rewarding adventure. I’ve stumbled upon great deals a number of times just by dropping by summer yard sales. I’ve seen entire sets for $30. Single woods were $3. Granted, they weren’t the best of the best, but I don’t need the best of the best to play (until such time that I turn pro).

I’d rather plop down a few hundred bucks into learning how to play golf from a pro than to throw down $1100 for a set of clubs I may not use consistently. Garage sales, auctions, yard sales, and thrift stores will all have sets of golf clubs for very reasonable prices. Again, they aren’t new so you do need to check out the shafts to make sure they aren’t bowed. But those neighborhood summer sales would be the first place I’d look.

Next, I would log onto the largest online auction site in the world, ebay.com. For the past ten years Ebay has enjoyed a great reputation in the online auction and e-commerce world. You can find exceptionally good deals if you know how and where to look. But you do need a little patience because the deals may not end for five or six days from the time you begin looking. Then again, it may end in eight minutes. You just never know. At this writing, there were over 2924 golf club sets for auction. There were 11,677 golf ball sites offering their golf balls for sale. Search around on Ebay and you are sure to make some really good finds.

Amazon.com is another quality and reputable site for finding golf clubs at an affordable price. Many may be upgrading their set so they want to offload their clubs and make some money in the process. You have to search for the deals, but you can still find them.

One disadvantage to these online sites is that you don’t get a ‘touch and feel’ before you buy. You don’t always know what you’re getting. Most major online sites such as Amazon or Ebay have decent return policies (with plenty of reasonable cautions before you actually press the Buy button).

Finally, online golf-specialty sites (not Ebay-, Yahoo-, or Amazon-related) are other places I would turn to in order to find great used equipment. These sites are geared towards golf and typically have ‘golf’ somewhere in the site name.

You can buy good equipment at reasonable prices but you have to be careful. Unfortunately, this is an area that you need to proceed with caution because there are a number of P.T. Barnum disciples out there (”there’s a sucker born every minute”). Be slightly skeptical about your purchases. Not everyone online is as trustworthy and honest as you. On the other hand, find the person with a ton of positive reviews and buy from him. Chances are great that your purchase will also be great. Avoid those who have very few transactions.

If you haven’t ever been able to buy golf equipment in the past, a trip to the local pro shop can be intimidating. There are just so many kinds of products and services on the market: balls, golf tees, shirts, shoes, golf clubs, training, drivers, putters, wedges, and woods. We can even take it a step further and try to decide where you should golf (private or public) and how you learn how to play.

Here’s a common yet basic question you can answer to make your job a little easier: how often do you think you’ll be playing the game in a given month or week? What are your plans long term? A hobby? Just putzing around? If you’d like to learn the game, then this is the right spot for you. Golf can be an expensive hobby. Golf equipment is expensive when you add it all up, but it doesn’t have to be.

Of course if you have an unending supply of money, then you’d already be at the nearest pro golf shop with the latest in attire and quality equipment. But that’s not why you meandered here.

So, now you’ve determined that you want to play this game a couple times a week when the weather’s good. The first piece of advice we can give is, don’t go overboard with golf equipment when you’re first starting out. If you’ve never played golf before, buying the latest Tiger Woods or Arnold Palmer or Jim Furyk designer golf gear will be very costly. You could end up being like Mark Twain who said, “Golf is just a long walk ruined.

You need to actually play the game a few times to see if you have “the bug” or not. Ask those who play golf regularly when they got the bug. When you get the bug, that’s the time to seek out quality golf equipment. Trust us on that.

Our next piece of advice is to get a few necessary items: a few balls, a few golf tees, a driver, and a putter. You don’t need the shoes, shirts, gloves, or anything else.

The next thing we suggest is that you find the best instructor you can afford and take a few lessons before you consider purchasing anything else. I know it doesn’t fit into the golf equipment category, but in order to play the game well, you need good instruction (asking your buddies to teach you can get tedious for you and for them. And if you want to keep them as buddies…). And why not surprise them the next time you play a round with them!

There you have it, buying golf equipment. Pretty straight forward. The next post will talk about how to find good golf equipment (and less than what you might think).