Let’s face it. Wind makes golf hard! In 1992, I was a rookie on the Asian Golf Tour. I flew over to the Philippines to enter my first event. I survived a Monday qualifying to get into the event and then went on to make the cut easily. I thought that there was nothing to this touring pro thing. The came the weekend and a ferocious 30-40 mph wind. I finished last of all the players to make the cut. The wind simply beat me. There’s a saying out on tour that when conditions are difficult, par goes up. Well my par went way up and both my weekend scores started with an 8 and you can’t survive as a touring professional with those numbers. A Chilean player named Roy MacKenzie was nice enough to take me to the driving range after my weekend debacle and teach me some tricks on how to deal with windy conditions. Through the years, I have added more tricks which I would like to share with you.
The first thing that Roy noticed was that I was trying to power the ball through the wind. That strategy does not work because the harder you hit it, the more backspin you put on the ball. Backspin spins the ball up into the oncoming wind and the ball balloons up into the air losing its distance. Roy and I spent time hitting smooth, slow 5 irons and I started to see a lower ball flight with less spin. The result was that the wind was not messing with my golf ball! There another saying on tour, “When it’s breezy, swing it easy”. Throw your ego out the door, take more club and swing easy. I have no problem swinging a smooth 5 iron from 120 yards. Greg Norman did it last year and almost became the oldest player to win a major.
Accuracy is always difficult when you are playing into a cross wind. The key to hitting it straight in these conditions is to always try to spin the ball into the cross wind. We call this holding the ball into the wind. If you are facing a left to right wind, play a right to left shot. The wind will counteract the spin and the ball will fly straight. Remember that as you spin the ball into the cross wind, the ball will lose some distance so adjust your club selection accordingly. Only experience will dictate how much you want to curve your ball into the cross wind in order to achieve a straight ball flight.
Hitting a ball downwind is a lot of fun because you can hit it so far. The challenge here is to control your distance and not hit it over the green. More double bogies are made from hitting it over the green than hitting it short. Obviously, you need to adjust your club selection as your ball will fly farther. Also, you want to go to a shorter club because the added loft will help you spin the ball better as downwind shots decrease the backspin on the ball. This may sound weird but sometimes, I will hit a low shot downwind because I can control the distance better than sending it up into the elements.
Lastly, I want to comment on putting. If you watch the European Tour players, they tend to have wide stances when they putt. Since they play in windier conditions, they have learned to widen their stance to stay balanced. I feel like my feet are rooted into the ground and I engage my core muscles to increase balance. It is crucial to stay steady as you putt in order to make the right contact. The wind will also affect your putts so plan your break with that in mind.
Remember, par goes up in the wind and the conditions are the same for everyone. Follow some of the before mentioned advice, and you will have fun the next time you face the wind. -jz
