What Clubs Should You Have In Your Bag? - Gear Questions

Welcome to Gear Questions You’re Afraid to Ask, a GOLF.com series produced in partnership with Cleveland Golf. In the latest installment, we discuss how to go about building the best club setup for your game.

In last week’s column about hybrids and woods, I mentioned that the typical golf bag sequence looks something like this: driver, fairway wood, hybrid, 3-PW, sand wedge, lob wedge and putter. I didn’t say it was necessarily right or wrong — I said it was common, and no doubt the same or at least very similar to the sets most golfers carry.

A week later, though, the notion of a “typical set” has been floating through my mind.

I wondered, “Just because it’s standard, does it mean the above set matrix its right for all golfers? Is it even right for me?”

So, I did a little personal research.

I’m not the smartest man in golf by any means, but I do have an uncanny ability to remember the clubs that I used during the last three rounds that I’ve played. After a quick mental review and some scorecard peeking, I realized that I did not use my 4-iron, 9-iron, and gap wedge at all during my last three rounds of golf — each played at a different course, mind you. I also realized that the reasons for this are fairly simple.

First, I like to hit my pitching wedge hard, so I almost always choose it over hitting a normal speed 9-iron. Same goes for my 4-iron — I hate that club and almost always opt to hit a harder 5-iron and risk coming up a little short than try to put a smooth swing on a 4. And my gap wedge? I still don’t know why I carry one. I almost never use it.

What about you? Have you ever done an audit of your own set to see if you’re using all your clubs, or are there some in your bag that are just there because they look good or because you might need them? If you discover that you’re not getting the most use of your whole set, it might be time to make some changes. Here’s some ideas:

Cleveland RTX ZipCore

Cleveland takes its wedges very seriously, as it should, having made some of the most influential designs in the last several decades. The all-new RTX ZipCore wedge rewrites the way Cleveland interprets wedge design with a slew of new innovations intended to help players gain consistency while also enabling more versatility. Which, in case you haven’t noticed, is a damn hard thing to do. (Well, maybe for Cleveland it’s not.) Buy Now from www.clevelandgolf.com

1. Have irons in the bag you never use? Take them out

There’s no rule stating what clubs you have to have in a 14-club set. While 14 clubs is the max, you can carry as few as you want. If you’re like me, maybe you’re better off ditching a couple of clubs that you never use in favor of another wedge with a different bounce angle or a beater iron for shots off hardpan and the desert rocks.