Sunday, May 31, 2009

Finding Great Golf Equipment

By June Karlsson

When you begin shopping for good golf equipment, you'll find that if you know how and where to look, it can be a very rewarding adventure. I've stumbled upon great deals a number of times just by dropping by summer yard sales. I've seen entire sets for $30. Single woods were $3. Granted, they weren't the best of the best, but I don't need the best of the best to play (until such time that I turn pro).

I would much rather put a couple hundred bucks in golf lessons from a professional golfer than to plop down $1200 or more for a set of clubs I may or may not use a lot.Yard sales, garage sales, auctions, and second hand stores will all have sets of golf clubs discounted. So yard and garage sales are the first place I'd look.

Next, I would log onto the largest online auction site in the world, ebay.com. For the past ten years Ebay has enjoyed a great reputation in the online auction and e-commerce world. You can find exceptionally good deals if you know how and where to look. But you do need a little patience because the deals may not end for five or six days from the time you begin looking. Then again, it may end in eight minutes. You just never know. At this writing, there were over 2924 golf club sets for auction. There were 11,677 golf ball sites offering their golf balls for sale. Search around on Ebay and you are sure to make some really good finds.

Amazon.com is also a good site to find a ton of people who are willing, for whatever reason, to offload a set of golf clubs for a reasonable price. The deals aren't obvious all the time, but they do exist.

One disadvantage to these online sites is that you don't get a first hand look and touch before you buy them. In that sense, you truly are buying a pig in a poke. Most major online sites have decent return policies, but I have yet to see a quality return policy that makes the customer happy.

Finally, online golf sites (not Yahoo-, Ebay- or Amazon-related) are the last place I would turn to in order to find great reconditioned golf equipment. These sites are geared towards golf. Buying from these sites is an area that you need to be cautious about.

You can buy decent equipment at affordable prices but you need to exercise a bit of caution. It's fine to be cautiously skeptical about your buys. P.T. Barnum said it best: "there's a sucker born every minute." And he hadn't even heard about the online world. Unfortunately, he's right. You now know that not everyone you deal with online is as honest and trustworthy as you and me. Do some due diligence and read the reviews of the person you are buying from. If he (or she) has a ton of positive reviews, you increase your odds of success. Chances are very good that your purchase will also be very good. Avoid those who have very few buy and/or sell transactions. It doesn't make the person untrustworthy, it just makes her inexperienced. - 16887

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