Welcome back to Low Net, a Golf Digest+ newsletter written for the average golfer by an average golfer. To continue to get Low Net, sign up for Golf Digest+ right here. Have a topic you want me to explore? Send me an email at Samuel.Weinman@wbd.com.

Holiday shopping for golfers is an inexact science. What golfers want is different than what their friends and family think they want, and both usually check different boxes than what anyone actually needs.

In a sense, the only sure-thing gift for golfers is tees, because the rest is highly personal and subject to misguided priorities. I might want a rangefinder to lock in my yardage into greens, but maybe I’d have different yardages altogether if I learned to find the center of the clubface more consistently.

Recognizing we can be unreliable arbiters of our games, I consulted a collection of teachers with a simple question: What is the gift a mid-handicap golfer should be asking for if they really want to get better?

The only catch was the pros couldn’t say lessons, and yet all found unique ways to address core areas of performance, and none suggested adding a 37th golf polo to my closet.

(Plug alert: this is all on top of the best idea—gifting a membership to Golf Digest+).

Here’s what they recommended: