Strategy Point 3 - Clubs (Beginner or Intermediate)

Here is the first rule - Avoid the tendency of buying the equipment before starting Golf in general or Golf lessons to be precise.
Honestly, it will be quite challenging to avoid this urge as it is the fun and exciting part and helps you to get into it.

Most often instructor will loan their spare set of clubs during the training. I would be surprised if they don't have spare ones. It is also expected for the Golf instructor to guide new students in club selection, so naturally you end buying new clubs after a few lessons

When I was going through the lessons, I got used clubs from a friend who was in the process of upgrading them.

After a few lessons, you are expected to get your clubs, but don't get pressured into buying clubs right away. Ask a friend to if he has any spare ones lying around.

In my experience, our instructor was nice enough to come with us to the local Sports shop and help us try a few and we picked up a new set of clubs called RAM for around $300 after getting talked into buying the warranty as well. It's funny, my friend and I got the same set with matching bags and whenever we are on the range, it looks like we got buy 1 get 1 free deal.
This wasn't a good decision, but we didn't know what else to do, not because we had the same set, but we found better deals for better clubs elsewhere.

I believe to buy good clubs, do your due diligence , refer to as many resources, get opinions from friends - they may point you to a great site. Yes I think if you are budget conscious, you can buy a good set of starter clubs, even reputed name brands, for the same price if you tap into these resources, instead of going to the retail outlet.

Compare this to our experience, for $300, we bought RAM clubs, that too with the help of our instructor. After doing some more research, for that much money, may be a few more dollars, we could have bough great set of clubs, may not be top most brands, but above average ones definitely.

 I am not sure why the theory of beginner vs intermediate clubs, with all considerations in place. Just focus on getting a good branded clubs, and it will help your swing to be smoother and investment to go longer.

Here is another aspect, why not buy fairly new clubs - slightly used. You will not believe but there is plenty out there, great top branded clubs for half the price I paid, and you will get extras, like a few dozen balls, maybe a combination of top drivers, putters, wedges, which individually can cause few hundred dollars.
These deals are out there, through Garage sale, people moving to other places, etc, cash on these, you can really save.

Even if you have money to spend, you may have to upgrade to a better set of clubs when you get better at the game, understand your style, or realize that a particular kind of brand suits you better, maybe you need a custom fit with height adjustment, or simply you do not have experience to take care of the clubs properly, so it will make more sense to hammer away on a slightly used one  initially and invest properly later.

Resources - 
Garage Sale
Craigslist (Just recommendation, not endorsement)

Strategy Point 1 - Just go for it.

One day, me and my golfing partner decided to try out golf to have some change from our routine software engineering jobs. It's almost one year now (Started taking lessons in Feb 2010) and looking back, we think it was a very good decision. It's not because we are experts now or feel good while dominating other peer golfers during our round of golf, we are far from it. What we enjoy is the challenge and little positive feedback from incremental improvements that we see in our game. This is what has kept us going, so far. More on this later

Back to when we started learning, we found an instructor, recommended from another colleague and we started our lessons at our nearby San Jose Municipal golf course. We had no clue or prior information from any golfer friends about a good way to learn golf,  like what kind of lessons to take, how long should the training last, whether to take it from a certified pga instructor or not, etc. We could have asked a few friends to be better placed, but we just wanted to get into it. It worked for us, sometimes too much information in the beginning is just a hindrance from getting started and knowing too much about the landscape can turn you away from it or could affect your instinctive learning curve. So get some idea and go for it, if it helps, tell yourself - I am learning something new and it's good for my brain cells.

Strategy Point 2 - Take Lessons, better still, Take Individual Lessons

In the scope of things, I believe this is the most  important strategy for playing golf to begin with.

This is just the way the game of golf is. If you don't learn the fundamentals, like basic swing mechanics, which slightly varies from each club, ball positioning, weight distribution, etc, then, simply put, the golf ball will not go anywhere.

Key Point - Only Technique can can lift and make the Golf ball travel. Force will just make you dig a hole. Force does not work in the game of Golf.

You will love this game, if you take lessons. You will surely improve if you have done this as you will keep building upon it and most importantly it will keep you motivated. This is your foundation.

Don't get me wrong, it will still be a challenge to advance in this game, but you will enjoy the process as you will start noticing the mistakes in your swings, it will be easier to work on it and pick-up what others are doing correctly that you are not. When you read about the tips for improvement or watch any instructional videos, it will be easier to relate and apply.

Let me share my experience, we took group lessons - 4 lessons for $100. We jumped on it. We were at a point that we were just looking for lessons, not really interested in Golf, so the deal was so good enough to push us into it. Looking back, I think it turned out to be a very wise decision, although we were not intending for it. Definitely these 4 lessons were not enough, but it got us started, introduced us to swing mechanics, buying our gear, etc. We spaced out our lessons, so we could practice in between, and follow-up on it with our instructor. The instructor was nice, but smart as well, he knew how much information to share for $100, which was fair.

In spite of not having thorough lessons for extended period on all the clubs, I can see myself improve and build upon my initial swing using the initial lessons. I kept struggling and getting frustrated as my swings were not consistent - the ball didn't fly every time, but going through some videos, watching other people, I started to piece together and apply a new trick to my swing, every time I was on the driving range. This itself is a great experience, when you are your own teacher and the by-product is that you develop a whole new skill of being able to take notice of your mistakes, apply new tricks and see the result change. This process is surely intoxicating and big factor in keeping you at this game.

I was not changing my swing, just adding one new fundamental that I learnt  form a video or an article and see what worked with my innate style.

This was all possible because of some initial grooming. Imagine with only 4 lessons you can start on this journey, with a little more investment, you will get there much quickly.

I took group lessons, with my friend, the instructor had some difficulty in providing complete individual focus. I realized that taking individual lessons for this game, is important, as there is lot to learn and the instruction is very closely associated with each individual style. So individual lessons is far more important in this game as it comes down to your swing style, learning on it and  improving upon it.

In nutshell, if you have to distribute your overall initial budget to the game of GOLF. Allocate 60 % to lessons, 30% to Equipment-Clubs, 10% to Rest of it. The percentages can change, but the take away is, in the beginning, focus on taking lessons and learning.