Found myself playing a lot into strong winds this year (not that I liked it). Thought I would share some basic tips through experience on making club selection easy.

Playing into wind is mostly about the spin generated by your swing make-up (arc, path, swing speed, irons, ball, shaft, etc.). I play a very high spin ball and also normally launch higher. The wind affects me a lot when I play. Different setups vary and you should try to get that down for yourself. Reducing the spin is the key to consistent distance on this shot, so swinging normally is the general rule. Don't try to kill it.

Take for instance here a 7 Iron at 150 yards (seems to be the most common yardage).


Measuring the wind:
-Stand facing into the wind, beside the ball
-Hold your arm out directly over the ball. When you do this you can build reference because you have the ball as a common point. Normally grass just gets thrown wherever and the judgement is subjective.
-Drop your grass and look at where it lands
-For me its 2 feet into the wind for every extra club, yours might be different.
(yea yea I know there are trees around and you're standing in a low area. You gotta figure that part out yourself. Let's keep this simple.)



Basic tips:
-Don't try to play that knockdown shot you don't have or practice. Hit your normal ball.
-It doesn't matter if you hit a 4i into that 150 yd green, no time to be macho.
-Swing normally to keep the spin consistent, even if it is a 4i.

I usually just club up and swing normally as you do. If it's really breezy, I'll go two clubs up into the wind. A near-gale, maybe 3 clubs or more. But, I like your tip and intend to try it out to see how consistently it works. Thanks.

The best tip I would give tee shot with a strong cross wind is to hit into the wind as much as possible. I know that sounds odd, as you might feel like you want to get as much "push" from the wind as you can. If you are a right handed player and the wind is blowing from right to left; tee up as far to the left as possible (even if you are stood outside the markers) and aim into the wind to the right side of the fairway. You might lose some yardage but you will hit way more fairways, than trying to cut it into the wind.

I've learned that even though I don't normally have a slice, a slice develops when I'm hitting into the wind. So the first thing I consider when there is a strong wind is what kind of ball I'm going to play. Nothing wrong with using a beginner's ball to minimize spin when playing with heavy winds.

I've also found that due to this development of a slice, when I'm hitting into a strong wind that has a left to right inclination, I'm usually better off just using a hybrid rather than my driver if there is water on the right side of the fairway.

I usually just tee up my ball slightly lower and swing really easy on my driver. It seems to work for me.

Slicer51 wrote:

I usually just tee up my ball slightly lower and swing really easy on my driver. It seems to work for me.

I do that except I don't tee it lower. That messes me up! I think it makes me wanna get steep. No, I just try to throttle back and really focus in on hitting it dead solid.

yes, the wind can help us improve the hitting speed..

Swing it easy, when its Breezy

in the wind i do the low-to-low swing a lot. I make sure that i take the club back low to the ground and swing through and finish low as well. This, with the ball a little farther back in the stance, creates a low shot with little spin for the irons. With the driver, i just work what i can. I swing an 8* driver as it is, so i have a boring flight with little spin. It does fairly well into the wind. At least it did this weekend.

I went back and read the OP....it says an extra club for every two feet away from the ball that the grass lands. What happens when you drop the grass and it scatters to the four corners of the golf course?

It's not gonna be your day.