I Am Terrible In The Wind And I'm Sick Of It

Orikoru said:
I cannot play golf in the wind. It looks set to be another breezy one this weekend, ruining an otherwise lovely spell of weather, so I thought I might try and get some tips before I go this time.


Problem
I can only hit a fade with driver, 3 wood, etc. Whenever I play a left-to-right wind, or straight into it, I'm completely screwed and have no answer to it.


What I've Tried
Using a lower tee - idea is to keep it under the wind more, but I've heard that a lower tee just promotes more fade so that might be cancelling it out. Maybe even adding spin as well? (I'm using a 9° driver.) Should I stop doing this and just stick with my normal tee height?

Aim further left - other slicers will be very familiar with this concept, but the more left I am, it's like my subconscious takes over and opens the face of the club without my permission to 'guide it' back to the fairway - making the slice action even worse and end up further right than ever. It's very difficult to aim at the left trees and actually commit to putting your normal swing on it, seemingly.

Another factor that my subconscious is killing me on, particularly straight into the wind, is that my calm, measured backswing disappears and it's like my brain says "need to hit it hard to get through this wind" and I end up with a longer backswing that I don't want - which promotes more slice.


What's Next?
Strengthening grip - my grip is already pretty strong but maybe I should strengthen the right hand round a little further for these particularly drives?

Closing stance - might have more luck if I shift my right foot back a little, coupled with the grip change, and basically try and hit straight-left pulls?


Just at my wit's end at the minute at the way my game crumbles in 25-30mph winds. Generally speaking my driving has improved on last year (couldn't get much worse) but the wind brings me right back to earth with a bump. Many of you are links or coastal players so you must have some gold tips for me??


(Note: Using an iron isn't the answer since my longest iron is a 6 so that will go absolutely nowhere. My 3W & 7W are high-launching so probably wouldn't be much help.)
Click to expand...


I know of your pain. Was a ‘power fader’ for many (many) years

Course has half its holes either into strong wind or as left to right
I Tee it a smidge below pink castle & use a pretty strong grip
Aiming left didn’t ever work

I wish I could say just do xyz or abc but I’m such a tinkerer I’m not sure I could pin it to one (or even two) things that worked for me but I now hit it further and straighter into wind than I could before

With varying success I’ve messed with
Right foot back
Ball position
Tee height
Flattening backswing
Left Shoulder height
Shaft lean angle
Distance from ball etc

And these are just the regular tweak areas

Maybe the biggest area I changed though was the mentality playing into strong wind. You know that ‘swing it like you didn’t pay for the ball’ mindset.
And to find some confidence in the natural swing. You know the kind of mindset that escapes so many of us when on the 1st tee (& its a big reason why so many ppl slice their opening drive of the day)

I try to get rid of any physical & mental tension from my swing, especially the backswing, and part of that is also (to an extent) ignoring the wind
Its crazy how a little muscle tension in one muscle will bring my slice roaring back. Same for impure thoughts (no, not those ones) any thoughts that create doubt or mental tension and its sure to give the worst results as it always transfers to the physical swing

I still haven’t got rid of it from my chipping game yet but with driver I’m much improved
 
Two things I pick up on

A 9 degree driver!! in my experience the less loft on a club the more it will side spin if there is any side spin on it.
I went to a 10.5 years ago for that reason (I also fitted a low hitting shaft to compensate for the extra loft).

It is very often said phrase like "in the breezy swing it easy" you are right in what you have said the hardewr you hit it generally speaking the more spin you will get.

My own technique is to tee lower, with the ball very slightly not so far forward in my stance and have less follow through i.e hit more of a punch shot than a full shot which helps to keep the ball down.
 
jim8flog said:
Two things I pick up on

A 9 degree driver!! in my experience the less loft on a club the more it will side spin if there is any side spin on it.
I went to a 10.5 years ago for that reason (I also fitted a low hitting shaft to compensate for the extra loft).

It is very often said phrase like "in the breezy swing it easy" you are right in what you have said the hardewr you hit it generally speaking the more spin you will get.

My own technique is to tee lower, with the ball very slightly not so far forward in my stance and have less follow through i.e hit more of a punch shot than a full shot which helps to keep the ball down.
Click to expand...

Sounds like a recipe for hitting down on the ball and imparting more spin. It's been shown that the better result for longer drives into wind is higher launch, lower spin than the other way around.
 
Are you able to hit punch shots? I can by just treating them a bit like a chip - ball back in the stance, hands really far forward, and then just giving it a good whack but not following through all the way. When it is proper blowing, and it is down here today, that is how I combat it. It goes fairly straight but very low and I don't lose much difference when the ground is hard.

Not much good with a driver, but works with low irons and hybrids.
 
jim8flog said:
Two things I pick up on

A 9 degree driver!! in my experience the less loft on a club the more it will side spin if there is any side spin on it.
I went to a 10.5 years ago for that reason (I also fitted a low hitting shaft to compensate for the extra loft).

It is very often said phrase like "in the breezy swing it easy" you are right in what you have said the hardewr you hit it generally speaking the more spin you will get.

My own technique is to tee lower, with the ball very slightly not so far forward in my stance and have less follow through i.e hit more of a punch shot than a full shot which helps to keep the ball down.
Click to expand...
I picked up on the driver loft as well.

I have gone from 9.5 Deg to 10.5 Deg and hit up on the ball a lot more than I ever used to (even into a head wind).
 
jim8flog said:
Two things I pick up on

A 9 degree driver!! in my experience the less loft on a club the more it will side spin if there is any side spin on it.
I went to a 10.5 years ago for that reason (I also fitted a low hitting shaft to compensate for the extra loft).

It is very often said phrase like "in the breezy swing it easy" you are right in what you have said the hardewr you hit it generally speaking the more spin you will get.

My own technique is to tee lower, with the ball very slightly not so far forward in my stance and have less follow through i.e hit more of a punch shot than a full shot which helps to keep the ball down.
Click to expand...
I know that's true, but I did a fitting for it and he fitted me at 9° - the higher loft produced too much spin and launched too high. I try not to tinker away from what I was fitted. Modern drivers seem to launch so high, I seem to see a lot of people going from 10.5 to 9 degrees when they get fitted.

howbow88 said:
Are you able to hit punch shots? I can by just treating them a bit like a chip - ball back in the stance, hands really far forward, and then just giving it a good whack but not following through all the way. When it is proper blowing, and it is down here today, that is how I combat it. It goes fairly straight but very low and I don't lose much difference when the ground is hard.

Not much good with a driver, but works with low irons and hybrids.
Click to expand...
Maybe I'm wrong but it sounds like if I did that with driver it would just launch straight right by about 50 yards.
Oh just read the bottom part, haha. I prefer to hit driver as I'm not very long off the tee as it is. If I hit hybrid/iron into the wind it would go about 130 yards at best.
 
sjw said:
Sounds like a recipe for hitting down on the ball and imparting more spin. It's been shown that the better result for longer drives into wind is higher launch, lower spin than the other way around.
Click to expand...
No I do not hit down on the ball the ball is too far forward of centre for that. I have played a hill top golf course with strong westerlies for 30+ years and have developed a method that works for me.

I try to hit more on the level and let the club loft work rather than hitting on the up (which I would do for a standard tee shot).
 
CliveW said:
In the breeze, swing with ease!
Click to expand...
My boss (the head professional) used to say, "If it's breezy, swing easy." He meant that swinging harder exaggerated faults. He also often said, "the wind is my friend" - he played well in the wind, others didn't!
 
I play at one of the windiest courses in Sussex, the only tips I would give are, don't fight it and accept on some holes it will cost you shots but on others it’ll help you get them back.
 
Orikoru said:
Definitely don't have a spare 50 quid for that at the moment. Or another year to recover from it like last time. 😛
Click to expand...

Getting 50 different opinions from a load of drongos on a golf forum is definitely the way to go then. 👍 :D

Closed stance and feel you're closing the face as you hit through the ball, and make sure you follow through down the line.
 
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