So I just turned 30, have been wanting to try golf for a while now, and I just bought my first set of beginner clubs for like $300 and some balls/tees/a glove.

My local course has $44 tee times on weekends for 18 holes and the course is in decent shape, range balls are $10 for 80.

This doesn't seem nearly as expensive as people say, or an I wrong? I'm not shelling out $5-10k for a country club membership (at least anytime soon), and it seems like if I just want to play 2 weekends a month, this is a totally reasonable hobby money wise.

For context, we live in a large-ish Southern US city and counting mine and my wife's income we make $130k/year before taxes, no student loans or car loans, so comfortably middle class, but all my life people made me believe that only wealthy people played golf.

Is golf really as expensive as people say?