Are you looking at taking up golf? When it comes to selecting your golf bag, you have nearly as many options as brands for your clubs. You get five, eight, and 14-slot golf bags, so which one do you need for your clubs?
The 14-slot bag is gaining in popularity. Thanks to its ability to keep your clubs organized and prevent snagging in the bag, it’s a win for golfers. But do you really need that many dividers? Does it make sense to go with a 14-slot bag as a beginner?
Let’s unpack these questions and show you the benefits of buying a 14-slot bag for your clubs and your golfing experience.
How to Organize a 14 Slot Golf Bag
Contents
We designed this easy, step-by-step process for organizing your 14-slot golf bag. Follow our advice and keep your clubs on hand and where you need them while on the course.
Step 1 – Empty and Clean the Bag
Before placing any clubs in your bag, make sure it’s clean. If you’re buying used equipment, you have no idea what the previous owner left at the bottom of the bag.
Golf is an unforgiving, temperamental sport. So, you’ll find plenty of pro-level 14-slot golf bags available in the secondary market.
If you shop around, you’ll find a used bag in great condition. Maybe some executive decided they wanted to buy the best equipment.
After struggling with the sport, they’re ready to throw away their bag and clubs or at least sell them to you at a great discount off the retail price.
So, if you buy your bag used, make sure you clean it out first. Turn it upside down and shake it out. You’ll probably find old tees and scorecards fall out.
Take a vacuum cleaner and remove the head. Stick the vacuum shaft down each slot to remove debris inside the bag.
Step 2 – Organize the Bag the Right Way
After cleaning the bag, it’s time to gather your gear and prep the bag for filling. Most golfers carry six to nine balls in their bag, but not more than 12.
The reality is most players carry too much nonsense that they don’t need on the course. A 14-slot bag is heavy, so reducing your equipment to the core components is the best way to reduce its weight.
You don’t need that bag of 5,000 tees, so take a dozen or so out, tie them up with a rubber band, and add them to the bag. The same goes for divot repair tools and ball markers.
These items add weight to the bag, so make sure you only take what’s necessary. Carrying ten divot repair tools is just impractical and weighs you down.
Keep your rangefinder in a separate pocket, and store the divot tools and tees in the dedicated pockets on the side.
Step 3 – Sort the Drivers and Woods
Let’s start organizing your bag by finding a home for the Big Dog and his friends. Your driver and fairway woods are the largest clubs in the bag, so you’ll be storing them towards the rear panel of the bag, farthest away from you.
When you place the bag on a cart, it leans with the largest clubs facing towards you, forming a tiered structure with the larger clubs at the bottom.
This strategy ensures you don’ have to reach over the drivers, snagging them when removing the wedge or putter.
When organizing clubs, you’ll start with positioning your driver in the rear left corner of the bag. Place the 3-wood and 5-wood in the slots to the right in the rear panel. With a 14-slot bag, you have all the space you need for your fairway woods and driver.
If you’re using hybrids or have a 16-piece set, you can double-up on the top driver row to give you the storage space you need.
Add the hybrids to the slots for your 5-wood and 3-wood. However, remember to ensure you add the clubhead covers to prevent damage to the clubheads.
Step 4 – The Wedges
Next, it’s time to organize your wedges. Most golfers using a 14-slot golf bag have enough space for a full complement of wedge clubs, or around two to four clubs in this series.
You have dedicated slots for your pitching wedge, sand wedge, gap wedge, and lobbing wedge. This design allows you to keep everything separated for easy removal of the right club from the bag at a glance.
There’s no more need to look at the toe of the club to see if you’re pulling out the right wedge for the shot. We recommend arranging the wedges in the lower front row towards you.
Organize the clubs from left to the right, starting with the pitching wedge first, then the gap, the sand wedge, and finally, your lobbing wedge.
It’s important to position the lob wedge end-up in the front right corner of the bag. The edges come with a “wedged” design in the clubhead. By placing them in the front slots in the bag, you avoid damaging the shafts of your other clubs.
With this front-facing setup, the wedges hang over the front of the bag. This positioning means they don’t make contact with any of the other clubs.
The front of the bag also allows for easy identification of the wedges over other clubs in the back. When you hit the sand, you know where to reach in your bag for your sand wedge.
There’s no chance that you’ll accidentally grab the lobbing wedge instead of the sand wedge when you know its location in your bag. All you have to do is remember to return them to the right slot after taking your shot.
Step 5 – The Irons
After filling the back row with your driver and woods, and the front row with your wedges, it’s time to add the woods. The irons fill the center of the bag, and you should have eight slots dedicated to your irons.
The center slots of the bag are ideal for your irons, and you also have the option of using it to store your hybrids if you don’t have the space in the rear driver slots. Place the longest iron or hybrid in the rear left slot, under the driver slot.
Move from left to right across the rest of the slots, placing the corresponding iron in each space, moving from left to right in the top iron row.
In the second iron row, work from left to right for the shorter irons, keeping consistency with the layout of the top iron row.
If you have to double up on slots, we recommend doing it with other clubs, not the irons. It’s easy to manage your irons. All you do is return it to the same spot after removing it from the bag and taking your shot.
Step 6 – The Putter
Next, move on to the putter. Place the putter in the right location to make for an easy draw from the bag. Most 14-slot bags require you to double-up on the slot for the putter with one of your wedges.
We recommend keeping it to the left-hand side of the bag, on the same side as the long irons and the driver. Depending on your preference, you can double up on the pitching wedge slot or the lob wedge.
The idea is not to confuse it with the wedges, so you don’t pull it from the bag when you’re expecting a wedge, not the putter, and vice versa.
Some 14-slot bags come with a dedicated 15th slot just for the putter, depending on the brand. If you’re using a broom handle putter, then you’re going to want to position it on the side of the bag that’s away from your body when carrying the bag.
This packing strategy ensures that the long handle of the putter doesn’t poke you in the face when you shoulder the bag.
Some golfers might find they have an extra slot or two in the bag if they have a 12-piece club set. You can use this additional slot for your umbrella.
Step 7 – Organize Your Accessories
The final step in organizing your 14-slot golf bag is packing away the rest of your accessories. Most golf bags come with a front-facing pouch with dedicated pockets for your equipment.
The number of pockets in the bag depends on the manufacturing brand. Some bags may have ten or more accessory and gear pockets, and others may have four or fewer.
Most golfers will find that they only need three or four pockets for all their gear. However, some bags come with dedicated pockets for carrying wet items or your electronics, like your phone.
Set up your accessories and fish off by clipping your towel to the dedicated holder on the bag’s exterior.
Do I Really Need a 14-Slot Golf Bag?
A 14-slot golf bag is considerably heavier and bulkier than an 8-slot or 5-slot bag. So, do you really need a 14-slot bag for your golfing experience? When is it worth it to invest in this piece of equipment?
- If you’re new to the game, you won’t be picking up a 16-piece pro-style golf club set. You can get away with a driver, fairway wood, and a few select irons and wedges.
- There’s no need to carry a complete tour set onto the course because you don’t have the skillset to effectively use all of those clubs.
- However, suppose you’re graduating from beginner or intermediate status with a 14-piece or 16-piece club set. In that case, a 14-slot bag is worth the money. The 14-slots are ideal for the largest sets, giving you a dedicated compartment for each club.
- These extra slots come in handy if you’re investing in a set of graphite or carbon fiber shafts for your clubs. The last thing you want is to scuff your shafts on each other as you pull them from the bag.
- Sure, it’s not going to affect the gameplay of the club, but you paid all that money for the set for its looks and performance, right?
- The 14-slot bag also makes it easier to grab the right club from the bag on your first pass. There’s no standing around trying to read the toe of the club to see if you’re grabbing the sand wedge or confusing it with the pitching wedge.
- The 14-slot bag also makes it easy to identify if you misplace or lose a club. You’ll notice the empty slot right away and remember where you left the club.
Pros & Cons of a 14-Slot Golf Bag
Let’s go through a quick list of the pros and cons of using a 14-slot golf bag.
Pros
- You get a dedicated slot for each club in the bag.
- There’s enough space for the largest club collections.
- It keeps every club separate, preventing them from banging around or snagging on removal.
- The 14-slot fits with most carts and stands.
- Easier to identify the right slot and keep your bag organized.
Cons
- Some bag dividers don’t reach down to the foot of the bag.
- 14-slots means a larger bag and more weight to carry.
- They are somewhat uncomfortable for shoulder carry.
Conclusion
Organizing a 14-slot golf bag might only take you a few minutes, but it could save a lot of time on the course.
One of the most frustrating things for other players is when you can’t find the right club and waste valuable minutes rummaging around your bag for clubs and accessories.
Keeping your golf bag organized helps with making you more efficient and effective on the course, and the other players in your four-ball will appreciate you for that.
You’ll find you make better decisions on the right club for the shot, and your clubs get all the protection they need.
