Dealing With The Wind On The Golf Course (Video) - by Pete Styles
Dealing With The Wind On The Golf Course (Video) - by Pete Styles

Playing in the wind on the golf course will very rarely ever make the game easier, generally playing in the wind is going to make things a bit more difficult. It’s just one extra added variable that we as a golfer have to consider. Be it down wind, we might have to go down the club, playing into the wind we might have to hit the ball harder, side wind / across wind we’ve got to aim off line and expect the wind to bring it in. So it’s always going to be more difficult playing in the wind. But as a golfer if you can learn to control your spin and understand how the wind will affect your spin, you can minimize the difficulty that the wind causes.

Let’s particularly imagine a shot that’s played directly into quite a strong wind. If you don’t have control of your spin and you are putting a lot of curvature on that ball, that wind is going to amplify the effect. Let’s say that you’re a slicer of the golf ball, lot of golfers struggle with the slice setting up to hit the ball straight, swinging from out to in with an open face, the ball sets off and generally speaking will back spin up into the air and start to curve to the right hand side for the right handed golfer. As that ball flies off and gets hit by the wind, the wind amplifies the amount of curve and the effect of the wind is going to push the ball up into the right which is what the ball is already doing on its own, pushes the ball high to the right, comes down very short to the right. Likewise if you’ve got a ball that tends to go low and hooks a little bit with a strong down wind, that low hook shot will just never really get off the floor and really struggle to get airborne. So understanding how you can control the spin on the ball is very important if you’re playing in the wind. For some golfers, when they go out and they sort of open the door on a Saturday morning they are expecting to have a nice day on the golf course, they see how strong the wind is, they know they’re going to struggle because they don’t have control over the swing that they are making and therefore the spin they are putting on the ball, and if you’re playing into or across with the wind, it can be very difficult to control your shots. One of the first things I’d consider you can do when you see that strong wind is swing it less hard even when you’re playing into that headwind. Instinct says, playing into a headwind I’ve got to hit the ball harder but if you’re playing into a headwind, you hit the ball, you generally hit the ball with more back spin, more height, the wind hits it, you don’t get any benefit from the extra swing. And sometimes you feel like the harder you hit it, the higher it goes, the more it comes almost back over your head. So when you’re playing in the wind, we want to keep the ball down, to keep the ball down, use a lower numbered club, so a less lofty club. If it’s normally going to be a 7 iron from 160 but you’re playing into a headwind, hit a 6 iron, hit a 5 iron, hit it softer. The effect of that is a low able flight, one that’s affected less by the wind and will keep control of the flight. It’s also not going to be up in the air for quite such a long time that the wind could have an effect. So next time you go on playing, you’re struggling to fight the wind with your swing and with the height that you’re hitting the golf ball, use a bigger club, swing smoothly within yourself and hopefully your ball flight will be less affected by that strong wind. 2016-10-05

Playing in the wind on the golf course will very rarely ever make the game easier, generally playing in the wind is going to make things a bit more difficult. It’s just one extra added variable that we as a golfer have to consider. Be it down wind, we might have to go down the club, playing into the wind we might have to hit the ball harder, side wind / across wind we’ve got to aim off line and expect the wind to bring it in. So it’s always going to be more difficult playing in the wind. But as a golfer if you can learn to control your spin and understand how the wind will affect your spin, you can minimize the difficulty that the wind causes.

Let’s particularly imagine a shot that’s played directly into quite a strong wind. If you don’t have control of your spin and you are putting a lot of curvature on that ball, that wind is going to amplify the effect. Let’s say that you’re a slicer of the golf ball, lot of golfers struggle with the slice setting up to hit the ball straight, swinging from out to in with an open face, the ball sets off and generally speaking will back spin up into the air and start to curve to the right hand side for the right handed golfer. As that ball flies off and gets hit by the wind, the wind amplifies the amount of curve and the effect of the wind is going to push the ball up into the right which is what the ball is already doing on its own, pushes the ball high to the right, comes down very short to the right.

Likewise if you’ve got a ball that tends to go low and hooks a little bit with a strong down wind, that low hook shot will just never really get off the floor and really struggle to get airborne. So understanding how you can control the spin on the ball is very important if you’re playing in the wind. For some golfers, when they go out and they sort of open the door on a Saturday morning they are expecting to have a nice day on the golf course, they see how strong the wind is, they know they’re going to struggle because they don’t have control over the swing that they are making and therefore the spin they are putting on the ball, and if you’re playing into or across with the wind, it can be very difficult to control your shots.

One of the first things I’d consider you can do when you see that strong wind is swing it less hard even when you’re playing into that headwind. Instinct says, playing into a headwind I’ve got to hit the ball harder but if you’re playing into a headwind, you hit the ball, you generally hit the ball with more back spin, more height, the wind hits it, you don’t get any benefit from the extra swing. And sometimes you feel like the harder you hit it, the higher it goes, the more it comes almost back over your head.

So when you’re playing in the wind, we want to keep the ball down, to keep the ball down, use a lower numbered club, so a less lofty club. If it’s normally going to be a 7 iron from 160 but you’re playing into a headwind, hit a 6 iron, hit a 5 iron, hit it softer. The effect of that is a low able flight, one that’s affected less by the wind and will keep control of the flight. It’s also not going to be up in the air for quite such a long time that the wind could have an effect.

So next time you go on playing, you’re struggling to fight the wind with your swing and with the height that you’re hitting the golf ball, use a bigger club, swing smoothly within yourself and hopefully your ball flight will be less affected by that strong wind.