Today’s post is inspired by the fact that I’ve been playing in the most brutal winds for the past few weeks.  Growing up and living on the Texas Coast means 10-15 mph is a relatively calm day, but we’ve been battling 20-25 with higher gusts recently and that challenges you on a whole other level.

       I might note that you rarely see the PGA Tour playing those kinds of conditions, as the tour is scheduled to avoid that as much as possible.  It really doesn’t matter what your skill level is, the wind is nature’s toughest challenge because of the inconsistency in shot outcomes that are too common.  On those rare occasions when these elite players have to negotiate strong and gusty winds, you just don’t see scores in the mid- to low-60s like you do when greens are soft and flags are drooping.

       My Dad’s guidance was always “when it’s breezy, swing it easy.”  And one of my favorite Scottish sayings is . . . “if there be naye wind Laddie, there be naye golf”.  

       What puzzles me the most is how the wind wreaks havoc even with the world’s best players.  Every year, for example, a lot of the TV coverage of The Players’ is focused on #17, where so many of these guys find the water.  The green at 17 is nearly 75 feet wide and the same depth, and these guys have wedges in their hands.  What amazes me every year is how many of these elite players apparently just club up and hit their normal towering shots with trajectory peaking at 90 to 100 feet or more.  I remember reading a few years back that something like 80% of the balls in the water were on shots hit more than 70 feet high.  

       Puzzling, to say the least.
   

       Today, I want to share the basics of wind play, as I was taught early in my golf life.  The first rule on a windy day is that you have to relax your expectations.  As the PGA Tour players showed us, there is no tougher condition than wind in which to play this game.  
   

       Besides relaxing your expectations, however, there are some other basics you should understand in order to score better when it’s breezy.  And the first is that the wind doesn’t affect a solidly hit ball nearly as much as one that is hit off center.  Regardless of the shot you face, if you will throttle back your swing to 75-85% when playing the wind, your results will be much better.
   

       Another tip for playing in the wind is to understand that it exaggerates everything.  A gentle breeze to light crosswind will hardly affect a straight shot that is hit well.  But if that ball flight has curvature to it, the wind will do crazy things.  Curve it into the wind, and it will get “knocked down”, probably a club or more short.  Curve it with the wind, and the curve will be exaggerated by a factor of 2-3 or more.  A gentle draw becomes a sweeping hook, a slight fade a runaway slice.
   

       With it blowing in your face, the goal is to keep the shot “under the wind”.  To hit that shot, play the ball a bit further back in your stance, take two more clubs than normal and grip down an extra half inch or so.   My single swing thought it to keep is slow and make sure I lead with my body core and arms, so that the clubhead is the last thing through the impact zone.   Regardless of the club in your hand, think of it as a soft wedge shot.

       Also, with this shot into the wind, I want to make a more sweeping motion, rather than a severe downward strike.  The key is to minimize spin and height on the shot and these fundamentals help insure that.
   

       Hitting downwind, Ben Hogan advised that you always want to over-club as well.  A shot hit with less spin is less likely to get up and ride the wind . . . clean over the green or get “knocked down” by the tailwind and come up short.  Taking more club and swinging easier is key, but in my opinion, gauging distance of iron shots downwind cab be even tougher than into the wind.
   

       So, there are my wind-play basics.  I hope all of you have the good fortune to put these into play this season.  Golf become a very different game when you put a 15-20 mph breeze into the equation.