As said above, it's the gear AND the balls.
Starter balls are easy: Play full backspin all the time!
Starter clubs are more difficult yet predictable: Ball trajectory is low, resulting in a few hindering facts:
- flight is short, roll is long. You won't be able to come across front-of-the-green bunkers easily.
- flight is low, meaning that shot length is heavily shortened by upslopes. When common sense says, one yard more, you should take one club more!
BTW: The worst Starter clubs are wedges IMHO - exchange them first, but not below L28!