I just got home from practicing. On our most difficult hole a long par 4 I encountered a wind that I could not for the life of me figure out.
The hole was playing with a 15mph wind that was right to left but coming from behind at about a 45* angle. I hit two tee shots both of which died in the air but were in the fairway.
The approach shot was 180 to the front of the green and 190 to the pin with the small, narrow green elevated about 15 feet above the fairway. (Its a difficult green to stick from 150.)
From there I hit 6 different shots and none of them found the green. Here are the shots I tried.
1. High cut with a 5-iron thinking it would ride the wind......it died in the wind and came up 5 yards short.
2. and 3. Low 5 iron into the slope to try and run it up to the green. Both balls landed exactly where I wanted but could not roll up the slope to the green.
4. High cut with a 4 iron trying to ride the wind. Shot went long and found trouble.
5. High 4 iron again that came in with the wind hit the green hole high and went off the back leaving a next to impossible up and down.
6 Lower draw with a 4 iron aiming well right and coming back to the hole. Hit this shot about perfect but the ball hit the green and kept right on going leaving another virtually impossible up and down.
I managed to par 2 out of the 6 balls I hit from the fairway. Any idea how best to play this particular wind??? Should I just forget going for this green in this situation???
Again its a right to left wind coming from behind needing to carry 180 to avoid the bunker if you are going to challenge the pin.
Here is the layout of the shot. The red dot is where I hit from. Purple dot is the pin position and the blue dots are the resulting shots. Arrow for the wind. The picture doesn't show how elevated the green is.
The hole was playing with a 15mph wind that was right to left but coming from behind at about a 45* angle. I hit two tee shots both of which died in the air but were in the fairway.
The approach shot was 180 to the front of the green and 190 to the pin with the small, narrow green elevated about 15 feet above the fairway. (Its a difficult green to stick from 150.)
From there I hit 6 different shots and none of them found the green. Here are the shots I tried.
1. High cut with a 5-iron thinking it would ride the wind......it died in the wind and came up 5 yards short.
2. and 3. Low 5 iron into the slope to try and run it up to the green. Both balls landed exactly where I wanted but could not roll up the slope to the green.
4. High cut with a 4 iron trying to ride the wind. Shot went long and found trouble.
5. High 4 iron again that came in with the wind hit the green hole high and went off the back leaving a next to impossible up and down.
6 Lower draw with a 4 iron aiming well right and coming back to the hole. Hit this shot about perfect but the ball hit the green and kept right on going leaving another virtually impossible up and down.
I managed to par 2 out of the 6 balls I hit from the fairway. Any idea how best to play this particular wind??? Should I just forget going for this green in this situation???
Again its a right to left wind coming from behind needing to carry 180 to avoid the bunker if you are going to challenge the pin.
Here is the layout of the shot. The red dot is where I hit from. Purple dot is the pin position and the blue dots are the resulting shots. Arrow for the wind. The picture doesn't show how elevated the green is.
