Sorry, picture didn’t post.

Maifleur beat me to it. I would buy a box of golf balls and wrap it up with a gift certificate to a sporting goods store so he can choose his own. It's a matter of personal preference

Thank you! He isn’t by any means a professional and the clubs he has now are some old ones from his father when he got some new ones. Seems everything lately is gift cards. Oh well. Balls can’t be as hard, right? At least I could wrap a gift certificate for the clubs around them.

Golfer here. Clubs are personal. Get a box of some good balls (most people I know rarely buy themselves the really good balls) and gift certificate him the rest. What a thoughtful gift!

Any recommendations for golf balls? I might have found a golf store near them that does custom fittings and has some virtual reality thing to try clubs out. Their website doesn’t mention gift cards (and they don’t do online sales), so I will email them to see.

I come from a family of golfers - two sons are scratch golfers (that means they shoot par) and DH plays 50+ holes a week.

I completely agree with NOT purchasing the clubs. Fit and feel of clubs is highly personal, and your SIL would benefit greatly from the advice of professionals at a golf shop before he chooses a set.

(By the way, club length can be adjusted. DH has shaft-trimming equipment in our basement and does that all the time. He also replaces grips and exchanges stiff/flexible club shafts.)

Titleist ProV 1 or Bridgestone 3-30 are the preferred top-of-the-line balls around this house.

Littlebug, since I have been looking up clubs until my eyes were crossing I don’t think even mind sounding absolutely clueless anymore. The numbers don’t really matter, do they?

Well, I asked my DH, and he said he doesn't really pay attention to the standard/limited/high numbers. As long as it's a ProV 1, he'll hit it.

I suppose a big-time pro could tell the difference, but I don't have Tiger's phone number handy. :)

When DH played, he felt that Schlesinger balls were very good. Ditto on letting him pick out his own clubs.

When you figure out the golf ball, can you have it personalized with his initials. Then of course the gift card.

When I first started playing golf, my kids got me personalized balls. I, of course, started out playing very poorly and promptly lost all my balls.

Not the end of the story, though - other golfers would return them to me later, saying "how in the world did you hit your ball 30 feet in the woods, in that rock pile, at the back of the flower bed, in the mud at the edge of the pond, etc., etc." LOL

That’s really funny. Very nice of them to give them back.

Another vote for a gift certificate. He should try different clubs in different price ranges. There are a zillion choices. PRO V1's are very expensive. They're really not geared to the recreational golfer. (Google info) He'll hate to lose them. However, there is the status factor when playing with them. There are a lot of mid-range balls which will work well for him. Again, balls are personal. Construction, compression, spin factor, color, etc. I'm playing the new Callaway SuperHots right now. They come in various colors. TaylorMade balls are good also. Just don't get him "cheap" balls. Yes, buying golf equipment for someone else is difficult.

Honestly, he is lucky he is such a great guy. For the past 5 years (since they got serious), I have learned more about all kinds of sports than I ever wanted. Still don’t have the football rules down. 2 years ago I watched a game with him late at night (he came for a Thanksgiving weekend) and he patiently tried to explain everything. My daughter wisely took a nap on the sofa. Thought I had baseball down, but seems it’s more complicated than I thought. Golf is what he likes to play though. The other sports it is just throw some footballs in the backyard and such. And I spent a lot of time researching basket balls to just play on the driveway last year....

Football rules - ha ha! I grew up with a dad who watched all sports related stuff when he wasn't working, jogging, or playing golf (bowling in the winter). I picked up game rules by osmosis since the only way to engage him was by watching with him.

We watch one pro football game a week and I found that it's most enjoyable when i am familiar with the players and can follow the plays somewhat. The trouble with rules in football is that the NFL is tweaking them so often that you really have to keep up to not be thoroughly confused. Yesterday there was a catch that appeared to be a bobble, but since the player had already taken 3 steps it was ruled a catch. New rule. Sheesh.

All I know about is soccer. But I call it a big improvement that you didn’t just get a blank stare mentioning a bobble :)

You could wrap up, along with a few things like golf balls, club identification markers, etc., just some random pictures of golf clubs and tell him to go buy what he likes where he wants to buy them. Perhaps that wouldn't feel as cold to you as a gift card, and that would enable him to shop where he wants.

Suzieque, you just gave me another idea! I am always hearing the commercial on the radio here for the”Upstate golf card” It’s to play a rounds of golf at different courses around here. Going to ask my daughter if they have something like that up there.