Playing Golf in the Wind
By: Mick Euan Tait
The wind and other weather conditions is just one more factor that can affect your golf game. Even though you could have the ideal stance, the right address position, and the correct club in your hands, if the wind is blowing excessively hard in one direction or there is a cross wind, your ball won’t fly where you wanted it.
Beginner Golfers
Windy conditions can be really frustrating for the beginning golfer. Though the weather is ideal for golf, beginners can have problems controlling the golf ball, so you can imagine their annoyance when the wind picks up. To develop into a better golfer, you’ll have to discover how to golf in diverse conditions. Your local course could be wet or dry throughout the year or it could be affected by strong gusts. Also, if you play other courses in a different state, you might face different wind and conditions.
Links Courses
If you are serious about golf and want to become a better golfer then you will have to find out how to adapt your game to suit the weather. As you probably know, the links courses of Great Britain can be extremely challenging due to their exposed position. That is why it took 60 years for an American to win The Open. Those first Open winners from the USA are still well known names as they changed the history of golf forever. US golfers like Walter Hagen, Gene Sarazen, Bobby Jones, Sam Snead, and Ben Hogan all arrived on the shores of Britain and mastered the windy links courses. Since then, The Open has had winners from many different countries.
The Direction of the Wind
Because golf courses are not arranged in just one direction, different holes can be orientated in a different direction which makes it hard to judge where the wind is coming from. Therefore, the 1st step is to know where the wind is coming from. On a links course you usually get a prevailing wind direction that can be unvarying. Sometimes though, the wind direction changes throughout the day so you have to take that into concern.
On some inland courses where there are high and low areas to the course, you may be faced with swirling wind conditions. What’s more, you could be playing your approach shot from a secluded position but the green may be exposed to strong winds. So it’s not always enough to check the wind direction and speed where you are hitting from, you also have to look to the flag or the trees near the green to get a sense of the wind conditions.
Club Selection
The next step is to choose the correct club. First you must know that a head wind will affect the ball’s distance but not as much as a tail wind. Many people believe that a tail wind will help their golf ball fly further than it actually does. In fact, you will only gain about 10% distance when hitting with the wind but you will loose about 20% distance when playing into the wind. The solution to hitting into the wind is to select a lower lofted club and not to hit the ball harder than normal and to adopt a stance with your feet closer together for more stability. When playing with the wind choose a higher lofted club than usual.
The worst adversary of a golfer can be the wind, even the professionals can find it difficult to predict the wind and how it will affect their ball. Possibly the more difficult wind condition is the cross wind; it takes a lot of practice and experience to be able to know how much you have to compensate in your aim to the target. Playing golf in the wind is just one more aspect that makes golf such a challenging and interesting game. To be a great golfer you will have to just learn how to control your ball in the wind, and that means playing more golf on windy days.
Mick Euan Tait has been golfed for more than 35 years but had to change his swing due to lower back surgery. Learn all about the Golf Swing Guru that taught him The Simple Swing that puts less strain on the back than the traditional swing.
This entry was posted on 17. January 2010 at 09:12 and is filed under Clubs, Swing, Misc. Golf Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.
