Newb golfer

[Thefonz]

i picked up a fairly cheap set of clubs (was a pain to find the local store couldn't find left handed clubs) an will be going to the driving range at some time in the near future.

[Plow]

If you are really serious about getting better on a budget, it doesn't cost anything to chip and putt at a local course or range, plus you can buy practice balls that fly like 20 yards, and give you pretty good feedback on how you hit it, slice, hook, etc. A decent, but more importantly, fitted set of clubs is very important, can cost about 5-600 bucks, more for higher end clubs. It is expensive, but not prohibitively expensive unless you want to practice by playing at the nicest course in your area twice a week.

The issue is that even a cheap course is $20 or more. Do that twice a week, and in comparison each week you could be paying for a monthly membership to a YMCA or something with access to multitudes of stuff.

Don't get me wrong, I love the game, but even if you're getting hand-me-down gear and stuff it's expensive to actually go out and play no matter how you approach it.

Really a best-case scenario is to find a crappy course that offers yearly memberships for 700-1200 ish. But, then you have to actually go out and play to get your money's worth.