The putter is the most important club, probably followed by your wedges. A club that can be easily replaced by a wood or iron off the box, really isn't the important.

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If the driver was the most important club, Jamie Sadlowski would be the most dominating person on the PGA Tour.

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There's a huge difference and banging 1 out 5 long balls "on the grid" and being a DJ or Bubba type long hitter.

As a newish/crappy golfer, the driver is the most important club for me. If I can't hit a decent drive and don't have the confidence to hit a good shot off the tee, it can ruin a bunch of holes right from the start. I'm an okay putter, so I can two-putt a lot, which is fine since I'm not close to the stick when I get on the green. I'm sure the importance of each club changes as your game grows, but the driver is currently the most important for me.

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The putter is the most important club, probably followed by your wedges. A club that can be easily replaced by a wood or iron off the box, really isn't the important.

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I might agree with thay for 20 handicappers, but nor low single and scratch golfers.

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The putter is the most important club, probably followed by your wedges. A club that can be easily replaced by a wood or iron off the box, really isn't the important.

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I might agree with thay for 20 handicappers, but nor low single and scratch golfers.

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http://golfweek.com/news/2013/jun/13/us-open-2013-merion-phil-mickelson-no-driver/

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Short form: Mickelson takes on Merion without driver

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So much fail in that excerpt.

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So much fail in that excerpt.

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Well, provide us your knowledge over the golf publications/experts.

You can argue that your 4 iron becomes a driver.

You cant make birdies from out of bounds.

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You can argue that your 4 iron becomes a driver.

You cant make birdies from out of bounds.

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Theoretically you can on a Par 5 by holing the 4th shot.

But if you Shank an approach out of bounds, you can't make a birdie even on a Par 5.

So what club was more important there? That perfect drive down the middle doesn't do you any good if you chunk your approach into water or OB.

Driver's importance is overemphasized by too many.

If your driver is so inaccurate and if 1 out of 3 drive is an uncontrolled hookenf'er or slicer over the house into the next street, put that freaking driver away and use a hybrid or something.

My most important club is the one I'm swinging next.

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So much fail in that excerpt.

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Well, provide us your knowledge over the golf publications/experts.

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I've already said go read Every Shot Counts. Approach shots are the most important (multiple clubs) followed by the driver, with chipping and putting tied for last.

The best pro will make 56% of 8 footers. The average on tour is 50%. Is that really that important?

The problem with looking at total putts as a percent is ignores the need to putt on virtually every hole. It also ignores most holes are two putts.

Now, this isn't specific to every individual, but the average overall.

Talking a skngle club is silly. It really has to be driver or putter. As I've said, would you rather replace your game with the best tour putter or driver?

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So much fail in that excerpt.

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Well, provide us your knowledge over the golf publications/experts.

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Ok. If I go back, say two years and review my scores I can only know exactly what went wrong on rare occasions. If I see a 76 I'm not sure what went wrong. If I see 78 I'm not sure what went wrong. But if u see 84 I know exactly what went wrong.


And to say the driver us easily replaced by another club is just ridiculous. Go shoot even on a championship course from 7300 yards and let me know how you would have done using a 4 iron instead of a driver.


Last, Phil Mickelson is one of the best golfers ever to live. He is no comparison to any scratch golfer and even most pros.

The pros play a completely different game than us.

The reason driver is so important is because the MOST important thing is hitting greens (or getting it very close to the green). Getting close to the green is easier to do from 150 than it is from 190.

I have never really understood the idea of "just hit an iron off the tee or use your 3-wood." As someone who was really bad with driver not too long ago, I can assure you that I wasn't any good at hitting 3-wood either. Nor could I confidently pull out a 4-iron. I'd actually say that a 4-iron was probably the worst club in my bag -- more so even than my driver.

In my 20-handicap days I was hitting a punitive drive (meaning I basically lost a full stroke or more by duffing, slicing, hooking, or shanking my shot into trouble) maybe 25% of the time. Hitting a 3-wood didn't magically take that number down to 0. It really was more like I was 75% with my driver and maybe 80% with 3-wood (and I feel like that is being pretty generous). For the sake of argument pretend for a second that I could hit a 4-iron better than 3-wood and would hit a playable shot 85% of the time.

Hitting a good shot by using a 3-wood or 4-iron instead of a driver is definitely no guarantee. The only thing that I am guaranteeing by hitting a 4-iron is that I will have a 0% chance of hitting a short or mid-iron into the green instead of a 75% chance if I hit driver. You are marginally improving your chances of hitting a playable shot but you have a 100% chance that you are giving up distance potential.

You are better off taking a 75% chance of having clear shot with a 7-iron than an 85% chance of having a clear shot with your 4-iron.

Driver. No question. The math has already been done. There is no substite for consistently getting yourself a clear second shot with an iron that is 2-4 clubs shorter than what an alternative to driver can provide.

By the way, since someone mentioned Mickelson, I'd point out he's also carried 2 drivers in multiple majors (winning the Masters with 2, btw)

He has also carried 0 drivers...

I don't think there is a blanket answer here...people are trying to say THIS IS THE ANSWER but then only using their game as a reference.

I'm a much better putter than I am driver of a golf ball....if I could not lose 2 golf balls a round off the tee I would shoot 75 more often than I do now.

If u were to have someone hit 5 errant tee shots and 5 3 putts per round (equally bad with both clubs) then I would say fixing the putter is more important because u can immediately shave those 5 strokes off by 1 putting or 2 putting... Just because u hit 5 more fairways doesn't mean u shave 5 more strokes off the final score

For me the driver is more important because I putt well but the pros will tell u that putting is what separates good from great

If you can't drive the ball reasonably well, you can't play this game well.

Everyone is not using their game as a reference. I didn't reference my game. Several others haven't either. Every Shot Counts has done the math. That's what I'm referencing.

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If you can't drive the ball reasonably well, you can't play this game well.

Everyone is not using their game as a reference. I didn't reference my game. Several others haven't either. Every Shot Counts has done the math. That's what I'm referencing.

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I, like many golfers, have gone through phases of rotating between strengths. Some years my wedge play has been the forte, some years my fairway wood and mid irons have been the best. Putting has always been good for me to the point where the only way that it's going to get that much better is by stroking my approach shots into greens.

Last year was my best driving year. Last year was my best scoring year by far.

It didn't matter how else I was doing with the rest of my game those rounds last summer. I could scramble and grind out better scores on average just by having solid driver play.

More often than not, a blow up hole is followed by a hole where driver is an option off the tee. There is nothing better for us high handicappers after getting a snowman (or worse on the really bad holes) and following it up with a driver into the fairway or fringe. The grooved driver swing is then a big boost to the psyche and can quickly cause your round to turn around, be it for better or worse.

This calendar year, for different reasons here and there, the driver has been just terrible for me. My scores are the highest right now that they have been in YEARS. It's depressing. I came as close to breaking down about my game and wanting to quit last week. I did not hit a good drive all day.

I guarantee y'all that the driver is the most VITAL club in the bag.

Currently headed to the Colonial. I will again envy the driver distance and accuracy of the pros, while watching them putt and saying to myself "I could've done just as good on that putt [on a good day]."