The half set I'd start with

Club	Why
Driver (10.5° or more loft) or a 3-wood	For tee shots on long holes. Many beginners hit a 3-wood straighter and nearly as far. Carry one or the other for now.
One hybrid (4 or 5)	Replaces the long irons, which are the hardest clubs in the bag to hit. From the fairway, the rough, anywhere.
6, 7, 8 and 9 irons	The scoring clubs. The 7-iron is where you'll learn the swing.
Pitching wedge	Full shots from about 100 yards in, and chips around the green.
Sand wedge (54° to 56°)	Bunkers and short pitches. The wide sole stops it digging.
Putter	Roughly 40% of your strokes. Pick the one that looks right to you.

That's nine clubs. Add a 5-iron, a gap wedge and a second fairway wood later, once you know the gaps in your distances. Skip the 3- and 4-irons entirely. Even good players have mostly replaced them with hybrids.

What each kind of club is for

Woods have big hollow heads and long shafts, and they're for distance. The driver is the biggest and lowest-lofted, used from a tee. Fairway woods, numbered 3, 5 and 7, are smaller and work off the ground too.

Hybrids are a cross between a wood and an iron, built to do a long iron's job without a long iron's difficulty. If one club has changed beginners' golf in the last twenty years, it's this one.

Irons go from 3 to 9, with the loft increasing and the shaft getting shorter as the number goes up. A low number flies far and low. A high number flies shorter and higher and stops faster. Each one is meant to go about 10 to 15 yards less than the one before it.

Wedges are the highest-lofted irons: pitching (about 44° to 48°), gap (50° to 52°), sand (54° to 56°) and lob (58° to 60°). More loft, higher and shorter.

The putter rolls the ball on the green. Blade putters are thin and traditional. Mallets are big and forgiving, and for a beginner, a mallet is the easier choice. It's also the one club where price has almost nothing to do with how well it works for you.

Used, boxed or fitted?

Used is my answer. A set of cavity-back irons from five to ten years ago plays nearly as well as this year's and costs a fifth as much. Golf shops with a used wall, online marketplaces and the big second-hand golf sites all work. Look for grooves that aren't worn smooth, grips that aren't shiny or cracked, and a matched set rather than a mix. Budget $150 to $350 for everything including a bag.

Boxed sets from the big sporting goods brands run $300 to $600 new and include everything, bag and headcovers too. They're perfectly good and they take all the decisions away. The irons are forgiving, the shafts are regular flex, and you can upgrade one piece at a time later.

Fitted clubs are built to your height, swing speed and tendencies. Worth it, eventually. Not yet. A fitting measures the swing you have, and your swing is going to change a lot in the first year. Get fitted when you can hit the same club the same way a few times in a row. For most people that's somewhere between six months and two years in.

The things that actually matter

Forgiving irons. You want a big cavity in the back of the head and a thick sole. The marketing term is game-improvement or super game-improvement. They put the weight around the edges so a shot hit off-center still goes somewhere reasonable. Thin, pretty blades punish everything and belong to people who don't need the help.

Shaft flex. Shafts come in ladies, senior, regular, stiff and extra stiff. Regular suits most adult men who are new to the game and most strong women. If your driver swing speed turns out to be under about 85 mph, senior flex will feel better. Over 100, stiff. Nobody knows their swing speed on day one, so take regular and move on. The difference matters far less than the strike does.

Graphite or steel. Graphite shafts are lighter and easier on the hands, and standard in woods and hybrids. In irons, steel is the default for men and graphite for women, seniors and anyone who finds steel heavy. Either is fine.

Driver loft. More is better for beginners. 10.5° or 12° launches higher and slices less than 9°. Some adjustable drivers let you add loft with a wrench, which is a nice thing to have.

Length. Standard length fits people from about 5′6″ to 6′1″. Shorter or taller than that and a shop can adjust the length for a few dollars a club, which is the one piece of fitting worth doing early.

Everything else you need

• A glove for your lead hand, the left one for a right-handed golfer. $10 to $25.
• Tees. The 2¾-inch ones for the driver and shorter ones for everything else.
• A ball marker and a pitch-mark repair tool. A coin and a tee work.
• A stand bag if you'll walk, a cart bag if you'll ride. Used ones are $30 to $60.
• A dozen cheap two-piece balls. You'll lose them. The ball is the last thing that needs upgrading.
• A towel. Clip it to the bag and wipe the face before every shot. Dirty grooves spin the ball oddly.

Shoes can wait until you're playing regularly. Any sneaker with grip works on most public courses.

How to know when to upgrade

When you can tell the difference. If you hit a friend's newer driver and the ball flies noticeably higher and straighter, your driver is holding you back. If you can't tell, it isn't. Most players who stick with the game end up buying a fitted set two or three years in, and by then they know their distances and their miss, which is what a fitter needs to work with. Those distances, and how to find yours, are in how far you should hit each golf club.

Questions

Are women's clubs different?

Lighter, a little shorter, with more flexible shafts and often more loft in the woods. Many women who are tall or who played other sports are better off in men's senior-flex or regular-flex clubs. Try both.

Can I learn with my dad's old blades?

You can, and plenty of people did. They're just harder. A shot hit a quarter-inch off the sweet spot on a blade goes nowhere, and on a cavity back it goes most of the way. If free blades are what you have, play them until the slice is gone and then buy forgiving irons used.

Is a full 14-club set a waste for a beginner?

Not a waste, just unnecessary. You won't be able to tell a 5-iron from a 6-iron for a while, and the extra clubs are weight to carry. If a boxed set comes with fourteen, leave a few in the garage.

How much should I spend?

Under $400 all in for clubs, bag and the small stuff, and under $200 is very doable used. Spend the money you save on lessons. A lesson changes your game more than a club does.

What's the best way to compare two clubs?

Hit ten balls with each on the range and watch the flight, not the distance, since range balls fly short. If you've got a phone on a tripod behind you, film both and compare the clips. Filming your swing with an iPhone takes a minute to set up, and the difference in strike and start line is obvious at slow speed.