Re-born equipment junkie (ho)

[95124hacker]

My first post on this site! I'm in my late 40's and used to play ~50 rounds/year in my "prime". I used to buy several clubs a year, get them re-shafted & tweaked to my specs including "shaft tuning & spine aligning", counterweighting the butt end of the grip, you name it - I've tried it.  That was before kids and coaching youth baseball & basketball (which I still do).

Anyway, I want to get back into golf this year. My clubs are at least 8 years old: TaylorMade R5 Dual TP 10.5* driver, R7 TP 15* 3W, 200 Tour Steel 17* 4W, Rescue Mid TP 19* 3-hybrid, Fourteen Hi-660 4-hybrid, tour prototype TaylorMade X-300 FCI (forged cavity back) 5i-PW, Vokey Oil Can 54* SW & 60* LW, Ping Anser face-balanced putter.

I also have some "relics" not in my gamer bag: TaylorMade R510 TP 9.5* driver, Titleist 983K 11.5* driver, King Cobra SS 427 9* driver, TaylorMade R7 driver, Cleveland Launcher 15* 3W, TaylorMade 300 Ti 3W & 7W, Rescue Mid 22* hybrid, PRGR 200i 3-hybrid, KZG Forged II-M irons (5-PW), Vokey wedges, Rossa & Odyssey 2-ball putters.

My main question is: are today's clubs better than what I currently have?  Should I invest in lessons, equipment or both?  I tried a set of Titleist AP1 irons on vacation this past summer (rentals) and hit them better than my X-300 FCI irons.  While I'm not good enough to play with "tour" or "players" clubs, I don't want to go too far the other way ("game improvement") either.

[Lihu]

My first post on this site! I'm in my late 40's and used to play ~50 rounds/year in my "prime". I used to buy several clubs a year, get them re-shafted & tweaked to my specs including "shaft tuning & spine aligning", counterweighting the butt end of the grip, you name it - I've tried it.  That was before kids and coaching youth baseball & basketball (which I still do).

Anyway, I want to get back into golf this year. My clubs are at least 8 years old: TaylorMade R5 Dual TP 10.5* driver, R7 TP 15* 3W, 200 Tour Steel 17* 4W, Rescue Mid TP 19* 3-hybrid, Fourteen Hi-660 4-hybrid, tour prototype TaylorMade X-300 FCI (forged cavity back) 5i-PW, Vokey Oil Can 54* SW & 60* LW, Ping Anser face-balanced putter.

I also have some "relics" not in my gamer bag: TaylorMade R510 TP 9.5* driver, Titleist 983K 11.5* driver, King Cobra SS 427 9* driver, TaylorMade R7 driver, Cleveland Launcher 15* 3W, TaylorMade 300 Ti 3W & 7W, Rescue Mid 22* hybrid, PRGR 200i 3-hybrid, KZG Forged II-M irons (5-PW), Vokey wedges, Rossa & Odyssey 2-ball putters.

My main question is: are today's clubs better than what I currently have?  Should I invest in lessons, equipment or both?  I tried a set of Titleist AP1 irons on vacation this past summer (rentals) and hit them better than my X-300 FCI irons.  While I'm not good enough to play with "tour" or "players" clubs, I don't want to go too far the other way ("game improvement") either.

Welcome to this site!

I'm sure you will find many other like minded golfers.

[Pretzel]

If you had to choose between lessons and equipment, I would recommend you take lessons every day of the week. Up until this year I was playing with irons manufactured in 1987 (old Eye 2's) and I only switched because the grooves were really wearing down on multiple clubs (and those suckers are impossible to even scratch with the handheld tools). Lessons will help improve your game quite a bit more than the latest and greatest in clubs, but I would switch wedges if they are very worn down (I swapped mine when the face of my 60* started to become a little concave).

Lessons will improve the Indian, rather than getting a new arrow. They've helped me tremendously.

[Tooz]

Lessons first - if you can't use the tools properly, it won't matter how good the tools are... Get your swing consistent, then get or adjust the clubs to match, IMHO...