This article, written by Ozzie Carlson appeared in the Bergen Record 2009 series
ONE MOVE TO BETTER GOLF
Article 15: Title: How to Adjust for Wind and Wet Weather
When it gets wet and windy, what adjustments do we need to make to score? At the Barclays this past week, Liberty National gave us a good taste of both. On Friday the average score went up 2 shots per round to 74.3. And Saturday’s weather was even worse so they shortened the course.
In wet conditions, a soft course plays longer but the greens are more receptive. So even though the players are hitting longer clubs into the greens, they can fire right at the pins. The catch at Liberty National is that the pins are not readily accessible.
The undulations that Tom Kite and Bob Cupp designed into the greens make for very small flat areas surrounded by humps, bumps and ridges. So the player who is on his game, i.e. hitting at pins from the ideal side of the fairway and firing darts at the pins, gets some really great birdie looks. Conversely, when coming at such small targets from the wrong place, players constantly found themselves on the wrong side of a ridge with severely breaking up and downhill putts resulting in few birdies and several three putts.
Since the course was playing so long, 7400+ yards at sea level (in heavy air the ball doesn’t fly as far), players were forced to use their drivers on most holes, or trust their mid to long irons and hybrids to find the pin positions. In today’s rip-it power game, the players just aren’t used to having to play shots into tight targets with 5 irons and longer, except perhaps in the majors. Welcome to our world!
When playing long irons from wet fairway lies, we need to move the ball back an inch or so in our stance and play a controlled fade. Using this technique we can steepen our angle of attack, thus eliminating fat shots. In wet conditions it is absolutely essential that we strike the ball first, before making contact with the ground. Any grass or mud trapped between the clubface and the ball will derail our attempt to get to the green, let alone produce a birdie opportunity.
Next, we are going to miss more greens in these conditions. At Liberty the players found a lot of collection areas and greenside bunkers. From off the greens the wet conditions put trajectory and spin control at a premium, if we are to save par. When we get water trapped between the face and the ball, we lose control of both. So we saw a lot of players putting up very steep slopes to get to short sided pins. From across the greens we saw a lot of bump and run action with lower lofted clubs (9’s and PW’s). You cannot predictably get lob wedges close to distant pins in wet conditions.
From wet bunkers the sand is firmly packed so we play these shots much like playing from hardpan. We need to square-up the clubface, play the ball back an inch or so from our normal position and strike a steeper blow from slightly across the line. This technique produces a little lower ball flight with a good deal of backspin. So we have to land these shots a little short of the hole and let them release a little to the cup.
When we find our ball sitting down in the deep rough, greenside, we have no choice but to intentionally hit steeply downward into the grass an inch or two behind the ball. To do so, you must position the ball well forward in your stance (off your left toe), take a slightly wider stance and a very full turning, slow tempo swing – back, down and through. Here we are trying to trap a lot of grass between the ball and the clubface so the ball will come out high and soft. To get the clubhead “knifing” its way through the grass (minimize the resistance of the wet grass) we need to open the clubface, align and swing slightly left of target.
When putting in wet conditions, just a little moisture tends to soften the blades of grass, causing the greens to get even faster. Just a little more moisture and the greens begin slowing down. When the wind blows it tends to dry out the high spots and leave the low spots wet. At Liberty there are so many highs and lows that it made speed putting very difficult, particularly with so many double breakers. So we really didn’t see many long putts being holed. The premium was indeed on ball striking – leaving oneself below the hole or with a simple breaking putt.
The wind coming off the Hudson was gusty and often across the fairways. On such a narrow course the players could ill afford to let the ball drift with the wind. So whenever they couldn’t simply play under the wind, they needed to “hold the ball against the wind.” To do so requires that we put counter spin on the ball to the direction of the cross wind, e.g. draw the ball into a wind from the left or fade it into a wind from the right.
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The controlled draw is played by aligning slightly left of the target, with the face aimed at the target and swinging along a path slightly to the right of the target (from inside to out). Be careful not to take the club away too far to the inside. That gets your arms behind you, which will most likely lead to a blocked shot to the right.
To play the controlled fade, align slightly left of target with the face open to your alignment but slightly closed to the flag stick and swing along your alignment line.
