7 club limit - what do you choose?

I go 7 club all the time and I always go with driver, 5-wood, 5-iron, 7-iron, 9-iron, 56 degree wedge and putter. I honestly dont miss my 14-club setup because if Im inbetween clubs I can simply grip down on it and get a little less distance.
I also find that a 56 degree works just fine as my only wedge because I can open or close the face to manipulate the loft. I can hood the face to make it a 52 degree or I can open it to turn it into a 60 degree. The only real limitation to this is if you are hitting off of a tight lie it can be difficult to open the face and still get under the ball. Ive skulled the ball a few times that way before I realized that sometime you need to just take your medicine and accept what the course will allow you to do.
 
For the 7th club I would probably substitute a 9 iron and GW for the PW, especially considering your 4 par 4's under 325. A lot would depend on the length of the par 3's also.

Par 3s were playing 185y and 140y that day. The 185y is #1, which fluctuates between 155y and 185y depending on the tee placement. Fortunately the tee box is clearly visible from the parking lot so I can choose a club before I leave the car.
 
Kills me to pull driver but I'd likely only use it for the par-5.

I think I'd rather be a little club heavy down low. 5w is plenty off the tees for me in a limited club situation.

Both good thoughts... I didn't need driver. The par 5 is reachable in 2 even without driver (it's under 500y). As long as it's dry out, a tee shot of 200y will catch the slope and roll down in a valley leaving between 185-200y to get home.

My best 9 hole round on that course (a +1 36) came with the driver in the trunk.
 
I think next time I play it I'll go with:

3w
5i
7i
9i
50 deg
54 deg
Putter

Last weekend I hit a few putts with the irons, and also with the 54 hooded just for fun. I think I could get away with putting with a 5i if I had to. Choke down, hood it a bit, use a putting stroke.
 
I go 7 club all the time and I always go with driver, 5-wood, 5-iron, 7-iron, 9-iron, 56 degree wedge and putter. I honestly dont miss my 14-club setup because if Im inbetween clubs I can simply grip down on it and get a little less distance.
I also find that a 56 degree works just fine as my only wedge because I can open or close the face to manipulate the loft. I can hood the face to make it a 52 degree or I can open it to turn it into a 60 degree. The only real limitation to this is if you are hitting off of a tight lie it can be difficult to open the face and still get under the ball. Ive skulled the ball a few times that way before I realized that sometime you need to just take your medicine and accept what the course will allow you to do.

What was it that got you into the minimalist approach? I'm leaning that way myself, though it's sorta counter to the THP way, haha... not in a bad way, just that there's a lot of focus on the equipment here, which I get - I'm just not really all that concerned with the gear.

I recently read Tom Coyne's books (highly recommended), which lead me to the Golfer's Journal (also highly recommended) which both nudged me into a more minimalist and... dunno how to describe it... just a different approach to the game, more of a stop and smell the roses, less stressful and hurried, etc.

I feel like taking a few clubs out of the bag is kinda a natural outcome of that. It's more fun for me to have to hit shots I wouldn't normally hit. Same reason I've stopped fluffing my lies or foot wedging away from trouble. Taking what the game gives me results in lots of new experiences.
 
What was it that got you into the minimalist approach? I'm leaning that way myself, though it's sorta counter to the THP way, haha... not in a bad way, just that there's a lot of focus on the equipment here, which I get - I'm just not really all that concerned with the gear.

I recently read Tom Coyne's books (highly recommended), which lead me to the Golfer's Journal (also highly recommended) which both nudged me into a more minimalist and... dunno how to describe it... just a different approach to the game, more of a stop and smell the roses, less stressful and hurried, etc.

I feel like taking a few clubs out of the bag is kinda a natural outcome of that. It's more fun for me to have to hit shots I wouldn't normally hit. Same reason I've stopped fluffing my lies or foot wedging away from trouble. Taking what the game gives me results in lots of new experiences.
Good question. I guess that I got into going minimal partly because I realized that I really didnt use all 14 of my clubs very often, so why was I carrying all this weight that I didnt need to? I cant hit a 3-wood off the ground all that reliably, so that was out. I can alter my distances by gripping down, so I could drop half my irons. I can alter my wedge loft by opening or closing the face, so I could drop my gap wedge and lob wedge.
It also allowed me to get away with carrying a smaller bag that is lighter and doesnt take up as much room.
Part of it I suppose also was that I got into hickory golf and noticed that a lot of sets tended to be 7 or 8 clubs and that it was kind of a simpler game that is more based on feel and shotmaking and less on needing so many different club to fit a stock swing or stock shot.
When you look at the history of golf and see how we got to the standard 14 club limit, its really just an arbitrary number that the USGA and R&A came up with in 1936. Before that, you could have as many clubs as you wanted and players would have sometimes as many as 30 clubs to fit any situation (even right and left handed clubs incase their ball came to rest next to a tree). So, the USGA and R&A decided that having so many clubs was bad for the game because it took some of the skill out of it and because wealthier golfers had an advantage (because the average guy couldnt always afford as many clubs as the rich ones could) and because it was bad for the caddies to have to lug so much weight around.
 
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