just found RockBottomGolf.com this morning...seems like they have some really good deals on average clubs.
Got a set of Tight Lies fairway woods there for about $35 for 3 of them once, and the Ram Zebra putter ended up being like, another $10. Get the top tech from 10 or more years ago. The tech is probably about 3-5% behind, and the cost is about 80-90% less. You want to be a better player, get a set of Hogan blade irons from the 70's or 80's. It's like having a coach in your hand every time you hit a ball. I went from 110's to 100's with shelf stuff. After ONE lesson (if you want to be better, find a good coach and get a lesson or 6) and two years of using "players" clubs, I was almost always around 80-84 for a round and trending down before I broke myself and had to quit playing. Those Hogan blades had
so much feedback, I could hit a ball with my eyes closed and before opening them, call out if it was a draw, fade, high, left, right, fat, thin, etc.
Rockbottom is a good place to pick up old new stock. The thing with knockoffs is, they can have perfect dimensions and paint, but metallurgy and wall thickness and weighting and all kinds of things that the big club makers spend millions on in R&D can be nearly replicated or completely lost with knockoffs or Chinese clones. That's not even considering the shafts.
One of my best friends from school went pro as a golfer. He was very impressed with my set of clubs that I put together for about $150 for all 14, and said he'd be comfortable playing with my set in a tournament if they were fit for him (another
VERY often overlooked part of golf clubs).
Orlimar Tri-metal was the 3 wood I was using when not playing a lot, or was going to a long, straight course because it
was long and straight. Titleist 975f was my stick when I was playing well and could shape my shots left and right better, but was much shorter.