One of the basic requirements of mastering the art of playing good golf is you have to keep everything in the exact right place psychologically in order to obtain an unobtrusive and calm mind. No matter what you favour, a cart bag or a stand bag, nothing can boost your confidence to have a blistering start like an organized bag where everything is perfectly arranged, and you know the bag like the palm of your own hand due to the easy accessibility. Today we will discuss how to organize a golf bag like a professional player.
On every occasion on a golf field, you will witness that all professional golfers maintain one principal rule seriously: to keep their large golf bags well organized. The tour golf bags that they carry do weigh around a minimum of 10-12 pounds alone. And then comes the accessories like golf balls, golf clubs, and all the other essentials in it, which require space and balanced organization. So, mastering how to organize a golf bag is an essential thing alongside playing good golf itself. So, mastering how to organize a golf bag is an essential thing alongside playing good golf itself.
However, one does not really need to be a pro to learn how to organize a golf bag. Anyone who is even an amateur at golfing can still be a master at organizing a golf bag. After all, nobody likes to waste time searching for a golf ball or tee inside a messed-up golf bag.
Golf balls and tees should be organized in an easily accessible way in separate pockets of the golf bag. This easy accessibility will boost your confidence by enhancing your focus on performance.
This article will guide you to all the best possible ways of organizing a golf bag.
The Perfect Ways To Organize Golf Bags of Every Size
There are a few points to keep in mind regarding how to organize your golf bags. And one of them is to ensure the longevity of your clubs while storing them.
As golf clubs are quite costly, you might not want to show any negligence in taking care of them. Instead, you’ll take the best possible care to ensure the perfect protection of your clubs while you’re going out on the course. A common thing that every golfer must have noticed is that the club heads stumble across and knock each other while they are kept in the bag and carried on the shoulder. This can cause damage to a certain extent to the irons.
So, keeping things like these in mind, you might want to properly space up among your clubs to maintain enough distance between them while they are kept in the bag. And to do this, the selection of a proper golf bag is the key.
How Do You Organize A 14-Way Golf Bag?
A 14-slot golf bag will come with one divider for allocating each of the golf clubs. Right in the top slot, you can place the driver from the set – this is the longest among the clubs and comes with the largest head. After the driver, you can put the hybrids and the irons. Then, you can place the wedges and your putter. Basically, it is quite simple and time-efficient if you can arrange them systematically.
However, in the case of larger woods and drivers, you always have to find a way to place them on top for your own convenience, no matter how your transport and storage size is. Often, people might casually place the driver or larger wood in the middle of the bottom slot, which will actually increase your hassle by making it tough for you to move the other clubs placed around, rather than contributing to your flexibility.
Another reason for you to place the driver on top would be to avoid any clash between the delicate wooden shaft and hard metals, as the driver is the longest golf club, and it’s very likely to clash with the chunky irons.
The arrangement of the irons should be made in an ascending order based on the angles of the loft. This suggests that the 4-iron would be the one to start with. And this way, the lowest loft will be placed at the bottom.
In fact, the wedges also need to be arranged in ascending order. No matter how many wedges you have with you. The order should be like this: the pitching wedge has to be stored first. Then comes the gap wedge, after that the sand wedge, and then finally the lob wedge.
However, if you are wondering how and where the putter must be placed, a 14-slot structure offers you a whole separate space for the putter. Which is where you can comfortably store your putter. That’s all you need to know about how to organize your golf bag with 14 slots.
When you have a 14-slot type golf bag, you will have a good time organizing your clubs, and the allocation options would be the easiest. However, these bags come in a higher price range, and most professional golfers go for these 14-slot bags.
How Do You Organize A 8-Way Golf Bag?
If you have already read our 14-slot golf bag arrangements, then you are now dealing with something with lesser capacity but a stylish and handy bag when it comes to the 8-slot / 8-way golf bag. However, even in this type of bag, you have to strategize to arrange your clubs in a way that the clubs with the highest loft should be placed on top.
At first, it would be the driver and woods on top, then comes the irons and hybrids, and after that, the wedges like the 14-slot bags. And again, in the case of the putter, it has a dedicated putter well where you can place the putter separately.
So, whether you have a 14-slot or an 8-slot bag, the arrangement order is almost the same except for the fact that, in the 8-way golf bags, similar kinds of clubs are put together in the same compartment for storage with one dedicated well for the putter.
You should put your driver and three wood in the 1st slot. Then your 20-degree and 23-degree hybrids should be allocated in the 2nd slot. The 3rd slot will contain your 4 and 5 irons. After that, the 6 and 7 irons can be stored in slot 4. For 8 and 9 irons, pick slot 5 as storage. For your pitching wedge and gap wedge, go for Slot 6. After that, sand wedge and lob wedge should be stored in slot 7. And finally, as usual, the putter will be going to the last slot, which means slot 8. This is all about how to organize your golf bag with 8 slots neatly.
However, if you’re comparing the bags, a 14-way golf bag will be ahead of 8-way every time, especially if we are talking about carrying a full golf club set. Otherwise, an 8-way is quite perfect as well. The comfort and lightweight features an 8-way offers are helpful while you are carrying the bag. This kind of golf bag is suitable for an 18-hole or 9-hole walk.
How Do You Organize A 6-Way Golf Bag?
When dealing with a 6-way golf bag, the best feature to take note of, unlike 14-way storage, is its comfortable settings for keeping the long game and short game clubs apart, allowing you to place the irons in the space between. Also, a 6-way bag weighs quite less, keeping in mind that it offers fair storage, balanced organization, and good protection- all coming at a comparatively affordable price. Considering all of this, 6-way bags are just perfect if you don’t find comfort with 14-way ones.
The organization of the clubs in a 6-way bag is simple. Putting the 3 wood or driver on top will be the first priority, to begin with. After that, the hybrids or other woods will be placed in the next two slots. Then the irons should be placed in the middle two compartments. And finally, the wedges and putter will go at the bottom.
How Do You Organize A 4-Way Golf Bag?
If you wonder how to organize a golf bag with 4-slots, you must know that a 4-slot golf bag is the most comfortable and flexible among all sizes. The most attractive feature of a 4-slot golf bag is its lightweight, which makes it easier to carry while walking through even the whole length of the entire golf course. 4-way golf bags are perfect for placing the clubs in the most simplistic manner. So, there is no need for additional effort to plan and organize while you are using a 4-way golf bag.
When it comes to the organization of the clubs in a 4-way bag, put the fairway woods and drivers on the top following that, the center-left would be filled with the long irons. After that, you can go for the center-right section, which is to be filled by mid and short irons. And finally, as usual, the putters and wedges go right at the bottom.
What To Load In A Golf Bag
After discussing how to organize a golf bag according to the different bag types, we are going to focus on what to load in a golf bag.
Apparel
Near about, all the golf bags contain at least one full-length pocket for golf apparel. These pockets are dedicated to the storage of your golf apparel, and you can store multiple clothes in these pockets as the pockets are made with adequate space. But be careful about one thing: apart from any kind of clothes, you should not put anything else in these pockets.
Golf Balls
Choosing a golf bag that has sufficient pockets for storing golf balls should always be the first choice for a golfer. This is one factor that plays a very important role in the success of tailor-made golf bags and their sheer popularity among the golfing community. And if you have trouble deciding how many extra golf balls should be carried, note that a quantity of 10 to 12 is always a safe number.
Valuables And Accessories
The number of available pockets determines how one can store or arrange their golf accessories in it. So, in the case of a cart bag, the storage capacity, arrangements, and proper division of accessories are well managed, and the user can get accustomed to the organization process easily.
Even the portable golf launch monitors can be easily stored in the pocket dedicated to this accessory. These pockets come waterproof and velour-lined, in order to store phones, wallets, watches, keys, and pieces of jewellery as well.
Beverages/Refreshments
During golfing, it’s almost inevitable that you would want to carry beverages for refreshment. And for this, the insulated pockets/ insulated cooler pockets are great. Not only for storing refreshments, but you can also carry chocolates and energy bars there.
The temperature inside the insulation pocket is such that it keeps the food kept in there protected from the scorching heat of the sun. However, many of the golf bags are also designed with a holder for water bottles as well. So, if you don’t want to carry water bottles separately, you can have them in your golf bags.
Other Accessories
Last but not least, we have necessities like portable golf ball cleaner, umbrella, and golf club membership tags. And to carry them, there are clips attached to the golf bag. Yes, you can carry all the mentioned accessories with your bag with the help of the clips since they are quite effective.
Phases Of Organizing Your Golf Bag
From the discussion above, you should have a bit of understanding about how you should be approaching storing each of the accessories. You should also know that specified parts of a golf bag are dedicated to specific items. However, maintaining their orders in a way that different items like clubs, tees, balls, gloves would be organized well and stored properly is a subtle art – that is exactly what needs to be mastered. Now, let’s take a quick look at the proper steps of how to organize your golf bag:
Step 1 – Empty Your Entire Golf Bag
First of all, empty your golf bag. All the accessories like balls, gloves, towels, or anything else inside the bag should be cleared out. Go for a thorough checking in all the pockets to make sure that nothing is inside. This is a straightforward and necessary step to make sure that the bag is empty. And now you can rearrange everything from scratch while dealing with a lightweight bag.
Step 2 – Bring Essential Equipment Together And Categorize
Once you have an entirely empty bag to work on, it’s now the time for sorting out which of the accessories you are going to use and which you won’t during your golf rounds. Separating the fresh balls, fresh golf clubs, new gloves from the previously used or cracked balls, damaged gloves, or scorecards from previous games will make things easy for you. It will save you from having scattered thoughts about this stuff during your golf game.
After getting done this, you’ll find yourself way ahead in the process of effectively organizing your equipment, having a clearer insight of the next step to follow.
Step 3 – Clean The Contents
Cleanliness provides a state of clarity and precision. Your golf clubs need a good cleaning before getting loaded if you haven’t cleaned them in a while. Also, clean all the essential gear that you will be carrying with you in the bag. Check out every corner of your accessories and clean the dust. And clean your bag if you think it needs cleaning. This whole cleaning process will result in an excellent fresh start with a great state of mind.
Check out for food crumbs in the side pockets of your golf bag. You can apply a tiny amount of rubbing alcohol on a damp cloth to clean the bag too.
Step 4 – Arrangement Of The Golf Clubs
After following all the previous steps, here comes the most important step of the process – organizing the golf clubs properly.
As we have discussed earlier, you need to approach each kind of golf bag differently. Here, we will be having a general discussion on the process of organizing.
Let’s begin with the most specific one: the putter, which, as you might have guessed, will go into a separate dedicated putter well in a 4-way or an 8-way golf bag. However, if you are using anything apart from these bags, then you can place the putter at the backside of the bag or right at the bottom.
After that, you can pick the drivers and the woods, and you can also place them near the straps found at the top. This means that if your golf bag does have a separate dedicated putter well, the drivers will go to the left slot that is closest to the straps while the woods go towards the right.
You have to keep one thing in mind: the arrangement of the clubs has to be from left to right. This means the longest golf clubs will be stored at the back, and the shorter golf clubs should be placed at the front. And in the case of the mid-length clubs, you should place them in between the driver and the wedges right in the middle. This is a basic to follow while trying to sort out how to organize a golf bag.
However, in the case of 4-way, 6-way, or 8-way, there is a hack: pair up clubs of a similar type. For example, wood and drivers can be put in one slot together. Choose the center-left space to place the long irons and the right space for the mid and short irons. And finally, the wedges and putters go to the bottom.
If you want to carry a full 14-piece set for better storage organization, you can always go for 14-way storage, as any pro golfer around the world would do. You won’t face any problem regarding the storage and protection of the golf clubs; that is for sure.
Step 5 – Organizing The Golf Accessories
The items that you will be needing no matter what should be placed somewhere easy to reach. The side and front pockets are handy for keeping essential accessories like golf balls, gloves, markers, tees, etc. You can store your rarely used items like sunglasses, extra gloves, and other gear in the side pockets.
Conclusion
After going through this guide on how to organize a golf bag, you must have a general understanding of how the organization works and how the selection of your golf bag can make a great impact on your game. So, you need to be precise when considering which golf bag you will choose. After all, this bag is both your golf clubs’ protection and transport. Besides that, only a proper organization of the clubs within your golf bag will ensure the protection of your expensive golf clubs.
You have to keep in mind that you will be a better golfer when you are organized. And the knowledge of organizing your golf bag will enhance your focus and concentration on the game. You will be ever more confident when you know you are prepared. So, considering the number of golf clubs you want to carry with you, you can choose a configuration for your golf bag that meets your requirements.
Hopefully, this article on how to organize a golf bag has shown you how you can organize your golf bag like a pro golfer.
