Wind

[Ravenous Bugblatter Beast]

On Friday, the forecast for golfing in my area didn't sound too promising. Chilly rain on Saturday, turning cold late in the afternoon and maybe changing to snow. Sunday would be cold, below freezing and windy.

But Saturday turned out to be cloudy, but little rain. And temperatures hovering around 50, still the cold front would arrive late in the afternoon. So I got to a golf course around 12:45, and found it pretty well empty. Out I went, keeping a somewhat nervous eye towards the sky, the northwest, as the cold front could push through with showers.

It was on the walk from the 14th to the 15th hole that the cold front came. Dry, but the wind began to howl. That meant the 15th played with a vicious left-to-right crosswind, and at over 200 yards, I was happy enough to get a double-bogey there. Then it was on to the finishing 3 holes, all of which would play straight into the teeth of that wind.

Now 16 is a straight par-4 and over 400 yards. It was intimidating with that wind, and I teed it up a bit lower, and stood myself with the ball on the inside of my left heel, hoping to hit a low, boring kind of drive into it. I was worried some about my fade getting exaggerated by the headwind, but I said, "Let's do it," and gave it my best swing with the vision of what I wanted it to do.

I nailed it flush. Fairly nice and low trajectory, boring into throat of that wind. Just the slightest of fade to it, but going down the left center of the fairway and moving back towards the center. I smiled.

Up until I discovered the drive had gone all of a paltry 150 yards.

Ahh, wind.

[SiberianDVM]

I feel your pain. I played Saturday in winds of 25-40 mph. My ball blew off the tee and rolled off the greens several times.

As I finished (I have stubborn Scots blood on my mother's side) I noticed I was the only person in sight.

[Davebud]

That in part is why I have three hobbies, Wind is great, when I am sailing. If my choices were to play free golf or sail I would go sailing. Astronomy on the other hand needs windless, cloudless nights where the moon is not up. That one is real pain in the neck, seems like every night its clear skies around here has a Full Moon or near full moon.

[Youngun5]

i feel your pains RBB, i played and there were gusts around 30 mph, its tough to play consistently in that, but this winter i've been able to keep playing almost all the time, and KC winters are very windy, so my wind play is really improving, its been really had to grasp the fact that to keep the ball low you need to swing slower, but everything is finally coming together, i uncharacteristicly fell apart late for a +6 76 today, i was 3 over on the front, i had back to back birdies on 10 and 11, and all was lost with a double on 12, i parred everything up to 17 where i tripled and then parred 18, my driver was my friend all day until 17, nice low draws that just tore through the wind. but one 170 yard par 3 i set a record by taking 5 more clubs than normal, pured it, and still ended up short, i just don't believe how it happens

[GregInOz]

The game was not conceived in still air. There's something about hitting a full blooded, pure 5 iron 125 yards into the 'breeze' which makes me feel in touch with the golf gods. There's a certain beauty to it.
As long as its not 130 to carry the bunker.

[Ravenous Bugblatter Beast]

Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining, it was just amazing. I'm not the longest hitter in the world, well probably not even the mediumest hitter in the world, but judging from what I know, I'm guessing that at normal temps and little to no wind, that ball would have gone out 240 yards of carry and roll.

The second shot into that wind was a 3-wood which got me to just inside of 120 yards to the green.