Playing off rain sodden fairways

[Huwey12]

Winter is now upon us, with all the rain we've had the faiways are very soft with hardly any roll out
I was advised to preload my front leg for a better ball strike, which is helping, but I still have to club up at least one club sometimes two

Obviously the soft ground absorbs a lot of the energy in the hit

My question to you low handicappers is how do you adjust to these conditions and any tips you can give us mid teen cappers will be gratefully received

Cheers

 

[patricks148]

Winter is now upon us, with all the rain we've had the faiways are very soft with hardly any roll out
I was advised to preload my front leg for a better ball strike, which is helping, but I still have to club up at least one club sometimes two

Obviously the soft ground absorbs a lot of the energy in the hit

My question to you low handicappers is how do you adjust to these conditions and any tips you can give us mid teen cappers will be gratefully received

Cheers

easy I move it to a dry bit... casual water.

 

[gregers]

smack the fook out of it and hope for the best,thats what i do.
time is nearly here for me to retire my lob wedge to the car for the duration of the winter,to stop me from using it,as the fairways at my track like the op's are soaked.

 

[the_coach]

Winter is now upon us, with all the rain we've had the faiways are very soft with hardly any roll out
I was advised to preload my front leg for a better ball strike, which is helping, but I still have to club up at least one club sometimes two

Obviously the soft ground absorbs a lot of the energy in the hit

My question to you low handicappers is how do you adjust to these conditions and any tips you can give us mid teen cappers will be gratefully received

Cheers

one thing to really consider a good strike doesn't squeeze the ball between face & ground anyways

any decent strike (any conditions) needs to have the weight leadside first off at transition so at impact weight is at least around 80% on the front posted leg
this is what gives you a consistent 'low point' to the swing arc but with still a fairly shallow but downwards AoA which gives the best strike through the ball

have to be careful with pre-loading the leadside from the get-go of takeback as it can cause the backswing to be a ways too narrow which most times translates into too steep of an attack angle which can then be a ways easy to 'fat' it big time plus all the energy in the swing is down into the ground or if the upper body gets in front on the downswing again a ways easier to do with a pre-load at address you can catch it real thin

if the ground is wet I don't do anything that's overmuch different to norm
if it's real wet - kind real squishy- then I would put the ball (perhaps counter-intuitively for some folks) either half or a full ball forwards in my stance with depending on conditions the norm club for the distance or a club more (with a more controlled 3/4 swing) as it's all about accuracy of strike not just clubhead speed regardless - the reason for doing this is you want launch up in the air to get carry so distance as you got no run travel
plus if real wet you going to get water between ball & face plus often times some surface grass so you get less overall backspin so less height at launch less peak height less carry - so it's all about doing the things to mitigate this as much as possibe

lot of folks may well put the ball back in the stance but that means steep attack V shaped arc so smaller flat spot through strike area plus with hands a ways ahead you lowering the launch angle so much less peak height & carry so less distance through the air & still no run travel given the ground conditions

 

[Huwey12]

Thanks for the detailed reply Coach, I like your bit about placing the ball forward in the stance, it makes sense not to catch the ball to steeply as it's only going to smack it into a soft ground

On my track the grass seems to get very thin, even though you can pick & place, it is usually a tight lie which makes it a little more testing

Good to see you've maintained your +3, see you on tv soon

 

[delc]

You will lose distance anyway in the winter, because the air is colder and denser, and the balls become less resilient and roll less on landing. As to ball striking, anything hit even slightly fat off sodden ground will go nowhere, so you need a good clean ball first strike. If anything, slightly thin is better than slightly fat, so stay centred on the ball and maybe even grip down half an inch on the club. You will need to take one or two clubs more for a given distance than you would in the summer.

 

[DCB]

If the fairways are that bad, it's a bacon roll and a coffee in the clubhouse. If you're scared of going home too early it can be followed by soup and a roll at lunchtime