You will notice if you glance back that I said it CAN be an expensive hobby but that by no means it has to be. Buying your golf clubs online can save you a lot of cash. Buying a set from an auction site can save you even more. For instance a driver in the mall could cost $400 but online you could get it for $350 or perhaps a bit less.From an auction site you may get it for $250 but you do need some caution.

I buy all my golf equipment from auction sites and, touch wood have never had a problem, however where ever there is money there are the scamsters who will try to get one over on the rest of us. This is not true of just auction sites but everywhere so a little care can save a lot of heartache.

You will notice a link to my website below and I encourage you to click it. What you will find is an online golf store which is predominantly ebay auctions for golf wedges, a particular interest of mine. By clicking on any of the offers you will be taken to ebay where you can bid upon the item. Some offers are 'Buy it now' items and you pay for these as you would in any normal store.

Now, lets just consider where you are. You have clicked on a golf wedge and you are taken to the appropriate page on ebay. The first thing you must do is read the description thoroughly, know what the auction is for, sounds obvious but you would be surprised at the number of people who bid on something only to find it's not what they thought it was.

Now we consider the seller. Thankfully the majority of sellers on ebay are, despite the scare stories, honest working guys and girls like us who want to do the best they can for you. Golf sellers are even more so I think, as anyone who deals in golf equipment shares your passion for it. Unfortunately there are bad apples in any barrel so look for these things.

At the top right hand corner is a link to the seller, it's his ebay id, behind that is a number in brackets. This is the number of completed auctions he or she has had, the higher the number the better. A large number suggests this person has been trading on ebay for some time. Scammers tend to be short lived.I personally will only deal with sellers with a number in the hundreds. However it is a benchmark and if there is something I want I will take the time to read through the feedback of someone with a lower number of auctions under their belt.You can pick up some of the best bargains from the person who sells the odd thing here and there.

Feedback plays a big part in the sellers lives. Check it, they want you to. Good feedback is vital to a sellers reputation and it is for this reason that they will put themselves out to help if they can. Of course some people just like to complain so the occasional bad report should be looked at in the whole context. My benchmark for feedback is around the 95 per cent mark but this depends on the number of sales, fewer sales and I like to see a higher percentage.

A good indicator besides feedback is whether the seller has a store. This is denoted by a little door sign and also a seller with a store will generally put 'Visit my store' somewhere on his page.If they have gone to the trouble of setting up a store then I think this is good news.

A final safeguard is to pay for your item through Paypal. In this way your details are not seen by the seller and Paypal offers some protection to buyers when things don't go as planned.

I hope this article has been of some use to you and I further hope that it saves you some money when buying golf clubs online.