The Best Golf Clubs For The Money (2021 Buyer’s Guide)

If you don’t have the time or interest to learn about the intricacies of selecting a driver, woods, an iron set, wedges, and a putter, you can look into a complete set like the Callaway Strata. 

It’s like buying a complete tool kit – you get all the basics and then you can customize it to your liking once you’ve had some time to learn.

The Callaway Strata set has an especially nice touch in that it includes a 4- and 5-hybrid instead of long irons. 

Long irons are the most challenging clubs to hit. They’re so difficult that even many pros have stopped using them and opt for hybrids instead. 

I always recommend that beginners skip long irons and start off with hybrids. It makes golf more fun and reduces the learning curve.

My biggest issue with the set is the putter. The face is inconsistent to the point that two putts hit with the same pace of stroke wind up rolling different distances. 

It gets the job done well enough, but it’s the first piece of this set that I’d recommend upgrading when you have the time and budget space.

It’s nice that it comes with a golf bag, though it seems like the bag might wear out more quickly than the clubs. The zippers feel a little cheap, so be careful with them. 

It’s good enough to get you hooked on the game, and once you’re hooked, you’ll know exactly what components you’d like to upgrade.

First, what’s it missing? Well, there’s only one fairway wood and one hybrid, and there’s a pitching wedge but no sand wedge. 

The sand wedge is the most glaring omission, but if you look at the Wilson Harmonized wedge reviewed above, it’ll make a nice addition to this set.

A set like this might even be better for a rank beginner, as it removes some of the initial complexity of club choice. Let’s face it: a player won’t know the difference between a 6-iron and a 7-iron the first 10 times they hit the course.

So with a fairly sparse set like this one, the beginner is encouraged to just grab a club and focus on making good contact. I think that’s a great way to get started on the game. 

Once you’ve played a few rounds and have a good feel for how far you’re hitting the hybrid vs the 6-iron, you can think about adding a 5-iron or 5-hybrid to your setup.

The irons included here have a nice thick head and provide a smooth feel and nice forgiveness, which is crucial for beginners. The driver doesn’t provide a ton of feel but it’s light and fast, and fairly forgiving.

The putter is surprisingly soft and rolled the ball nicely. It was a little lighter than I like my putter but it’ll work just fine for someone just starting out. 

As with the Callaway set reviewed above, the bag included is fairly cheap, but it’s good enough to last for a few seasons. And by that time, you’ll be addicted to the glorious game of golf and ready to upgrade anyway.

I’m a big fan of the simplicity of the design. It’s a 460cc driver with a titanium head and a classic shape. The lines are clean, and the understated alignment aid on the crown is plaintive but effective. 

There are no sliding weights on the bottom, just a tried-and-true perimeter weighted design that will help correct mis-hits and send purely struck balls rocketing down the fairway. 

The hosel provides the only adjustability options here: it allows you to tweak the loft of the driver. If you find you’re having trouble getting the ball in the air, add a little loft. If your ball is ballooning and you’re not getting any roll-out, de-loft it a little. 

This simple adjustability offering is easy to grasp and very easy to get the right setting dialed in. You won’t need to spend hours on the driving range going through thousands of different weighting options. 

With ten minutes of minor tweaking, you can nail your preferred trajectory setting and focus on just hitting the sweet spot.

TaylorMade is one of the most respected driver manufacturers in the game, the RBZ driver truly represents a great value. It outperforms many drivers that cost more than double that, so it’s our top pick for the best driver for the money.

TaylorMade is there for you with the AeroBurner fairway wood, an attractive and effective entry at a price that’s hard to beat. 

It’s eye-catching right off the bat with its bright white club head and matching bright white Matrix shaft. Some golfers may find this coloration off-putting, and I’ll admit it took me some getting used to. 

It also requires cleaning more often if you hit it out of the rough, as the grass will leave green stains on the white club head.

The clubhead sits nicely below the ball, putting a great picture in your mind of a nice impact position and a high, long shot.

The alignment aid at the sweet spot is aided by subtle lines that surround the hitting area and encourage you to focus on making good contact. 

The shaft is slightly whippier than I’d like, but that’s actually a good thing for beginners because it helps elevate the ball quickly. 

Hitting a fairway wood off the ground can be tricky, so a more flexible shaft can assist in getting the ball airborne. However, into the wind, I found the high launch angle sometimes made the ball balloon, reducing distance more than you’d hope.

Since the shaft is a little whippy, I’d suggest that most golfers go with the stiff flex to help prevent ballooning and increase accuracy. However, if you’re used to ladies’ or senior flex shafts, the regular flex AeroBurner should suit you nicely. 

Since they’ve released the Hot Launch 3 line, the Hot Launch 2 line is available at a reduced price, but it still offers excellent performance. 

The 3-wood looks a little clunky and basic at first glance. The dull black paint job and minimal alignment aids don’t give you much help when addressing the ball. 

However, the shots the club produces are surprisingly impressive. The ball gets into the air quickly with a nice, penetrating flight.

The slight offset in the hosel will aid most beginners, as it helps correct a slice and produce great roll once the ball lands. 

Overall distance was a little less than the TaylorMade Aeroburner, and mis-hits didn’t fly nearly as far. But at this price, the performance far exceeded expectations. 

If you find the all-white design of the AeroBurner distracting or you’re looking for a more penetrating ball flight without ballooning, the Tour Edge Hot Launch 2 is well worth taking a look at. 

However, as Tour Edge isn’t a very well-known company, you may have trouble re-selling the club for a decent price if you ultimately decide it’s not working out for you. 

There just isn’t as much demand for used Tour Edge clubs, and the price is so good for a new one that people might not want to risk buying a used club. I’d venture a guess, however, that you’ll like the club so much that selling it won’t be a concern.

You can get a gap wedge, sand wedge and lob wedge for about the same price as you’d normally pay for a single wedge.

Of course, wedges are only as good as the shots they produce. Fortunately, the Wilson Harmonized wedge is a very useful club. 

The club head is on the heavy side, which I found helped with both greenside chipping and with sand shots.

I could write an entire article — heck, maybe even a whole book — about hitting good sand shots. But it boils down to this: use the “bounce” of the wedge to slide the club through the sand below the ball. The sand then propels the ball up onto the green.

On a greenside bunker shot, the clubface never actually touches the ball — just the sand. With a light clubhead, it may glance off the sand and contact the ball, sending it rocketing over the green and guaranteeing double bogey or worse. 

But with a nice heavy clubhead, it slides through the sand and pops the ball up to the green. 

The stock grip is a bit cheap feeling and the chrome coating of the wedge wears off fairly quickly, but the performance at this price level means the Wilson Harmonized wedge merits the distinction of our top wedge for the money.

Inside 100 yards, these wedges deliver a consistent ball flight with nice spin. Regardless of what wedge you choose to execute your shot from the fairway, you’ll find symmetry with each club. 

From the rough and sand, the Lazrus wedges really shine. Not only do they smooth cut through those obstacles to provide clean contact on the golf ball, but the deep grooves impart high rates of spin for shot-stopping power on the putting surface.

On shorter pitch shots, we were pleasantly surprised by how the Lazrus allowed us to be aggressive in tight spaces. After a round or two with these wedges, you’ll find that your confidence grows because these clubs can deliver the shot you need regardless of the situation.

The Lazrus set offers a raw look that is all the rage with professional golfers, so even though these wedges are available at a great price, it won’t look like you are playing with budget clubs.

The Lazrus Premium Forged Wedges are a wonderfully capable three club set for a very affordable price that is sure to lower your scores and impress your playing partners.

The putter also has a clear alignment guide along the rear of the flatstick that makes visualization easy. Using the company’s 2135 technology, Cleveland has created a system that allows golfers to see the line from any angle, whether you are standing over the putt or slightly behind.

From a critical standpoint, the softness of the putter might be a turn off for golfers that like a firmer feel, but the benefits of using this flatstick, if you are having a hard time keep the ball on-line, are undeniable.

Perhaps the most impressive detail about the putter is the price. For the cost of a wedge, you can have one of the best tour-level putters on the market. When you factor in its reasonable price point and reliability, the TFI 2135 was an easy choice for most cost-effective putter.

The Cleveland TFI 2135 is a wonderfully made putter that shines through with fine craftsmanship, and even better performance.

However, Spider putters start at about $300 and go on up from there, so they’re not going to fit into every golfer’s budget. You could play 15 rounds of golf at my local muni for $300! 

Ray Cook Golf offers this Silver Ray SR500 putter at a much friendlier price, and it performs surprisingly well. 

One issue I had right out of the box was that the grip was installed improperly, causing the putter face to be slightly closed. So I did have to replace the grip right off the bat. A putter grip is about $20-25, so even with that factored in, the Silver Ray is still quite a bargain.

The bottom line is that it did make putts. It wasn’t always pretty, it didn’t always feel fantastic, but the ball got rolling on the proper line. That’s the main goal on the putting green, isn’t it?

Distance control was pretty good, though I felt like putts hit out on the toe lost more distance than heel strikes. 

The paint chips off the clubface very easily, and eventually started coming off of the alignment aids on top of the putter. This is a pretty easy fix: just apply some nail polish into the grooves and wipe the excess off. Dry overnight and it’s good to go.

These minor quibbles are to be expected at this price point. The important question is whether the putts go in, and the SR500 excelled at turning good strokes into made putts.