Tell me about your experiences with the wind

[George Pazin]

I was just reading a bit of the new Golf Digest, and it's The Open Championship preview issue. One little article that caught my eye the first time through the issue was the sidebar by Dean on Carnoustie, and how it's the toughest Open test, and maybe the toughest test in golf.

Knuth relates that during a recent stroke play event, the wind was blowing at 50-60 mph and only two fellows broke 80, I think with a 77 and 79.

Here's my relatively inexperienced golfer's question:

Do you think that 50-60 mph is accurate? How can the balls not be moving on the greens at this speed?

How many other golf courses would even be playable if the winds were this strong?

Certainly no "Championship" course in the US, which always pride themselves on green speed, could be played in such winds.

I know I've read of people on here who say they've played in 60-70 mph wind, but my own limited experience suggests that these numbers are an exaggeration, even though it is likely an unintentional one.

So give me some stories, preferrably backed up with provable numbers!

 

[Matt_Cohn]

I played an event on flattish, medium paced greens (9, maybe) and the ball was seriously oscillating with wind of 25-30 and gusts to 40. I cannot imagine any course being playable above 40 in tournament conditions.

The winds may have actually been a bit stronger. Good college players were having a very difficult time covering 400 yards in two shots into the wind.

[Jon Wiggett]

George,

I played the Open Championship at Turnberry in 1986. On day two we had winds that aparently reached up to 76 mph which made the course very difficult. Although there were some parts of some greens where the ball moved in the gusts the course was still playable. Greg Norman's 63 on this day is in my opinion the greatest single round ever played in a major, although I maybe swayed by the fact that the 83 I shot on the same day I felt was a steady result.

[ed_getka]

George,
   We had a day at Rustic Canyon where the winds were howling. I would guess in the 30-50 mph range (I really have no idea). We were having trouble keep the balls from blowing off some of the greens. So someone would stand on the windward side of the ball to block the wind (yes, I know it is against the rules for those of you who are concerned that we would consider such a thing).
   On one hole one of the guys didn't get his legs close enough together and the wind picked up speed through the narrow opening and you should have seen how fast that ball blew off the green.
   We had some REALLY serious wind that you could barely walk through at the end of our day at Barnbougle, but I don't remember seeing any balls getting blown around on the greens. I have to believe that wind was at least 50 mph.

[TEPaul]

My experiences in really strong wind having played some pretty decent golf for a couple of decades has been---I don't know how to play it very well.

I feel in America, and Eastern America, is there's the wind in the south which can be what I call "flat"---eg it's as strong five feet off the ground as it is 100 feet in the air. Then there's the Northeast wind on courses that are tree-lined which is super swirling or corridor-like as in a city street.

All I know about wind from experience is you have to be very defensive with it and try really hard to keep the ball low. Club selection in a normal distance context sort of goes out the window and you have to just play by feel.

In very strong wind I find the ground is your friend and you hope the ball will bounce and run on the ground.

The most helpless feeling in my experience is really strong wind and soft ground.

[Mark Bourgeois]

I once played Kauri Cliffs in NZ through a Sou'wester come up from  Antarctica. It was a Force 9 or Force 10. For reference, the govt stopped running the ferries between the North and South islands. (Kiwis and Aussies know what this means.)

On the first hole, the rain hit my jacket so hard it sounded like popcorn. Turns out it wasn't rain but sideways sleet. The two ball I was paired with rode a cart. On the first hole, the cart got blown off the hole.

I was wearing khakis, and they got soaked in minutes.

As we walked off the green, the rain / sleet stopped. So we kept playing.  As I walked off the second green, I noticed the wind had blown my trousers absolutely dry.

The course was unplayable but we soldiered on. Balls putted sometimes stopped, u-turned, and came back. All the forced carries out there made for an interesting lesson in vector analysis.

I remember coming up to a par 3 with the ocean running along the left, maybe the 12th or 13th hole.  The wind came out of the starboard quarter or the starboard beam.  I aimed my tee shot 45 degrees inland; the ball shot up, caught the wind like a sail, and blew into the Pacific.

[Larry_Keltto]

Based on what I saw at Ballyneal this past week, I agree with Matt: a wind that's consistently above 40 mph is unplayable. A 30 mph wind is an extreme challenge, but it's manageable.

[Brian_Sleeman]

Twice at Crystal Downs this season the wind has surpassed 50 mph.  Some years ago they installed a wind gauge to nail down exact wind speeds and get rid of the guesswork.  

The first time this season, it was a warm and sunny day, and the wind was steady at about 40 mph, with gusts as high as 52.  My wife and I played, and I don't even remember what I shot, but I remember a whole host of shots I'd never been confronted with before.  On the first hole, I hit a solid punch drive about 150 yards.  Then a thin three wood to about 70 yards, and then a running four iron onto the green.  Later I hit driver off the deck on #7 to about 130 yards, then hit a long chip 5-iron no more than 15 or 20 feet off the ground into the green.

Contrast that with a "for fun" tee shot on the 18th from the white tees (382 yards) that ended up in the back bunker just past the green.  The only way it could get there was by hitting the green on the fly.

Could you host a legitimate tournament in those conditions?  Sure, but it'd take awhile.  A handful of putts blew off the green, but with some caution and care there were some bailout areas available to cut down on the insanity.

The second time it hit 50 mph was this past Thursday afternoon during a thunderstorm.  Apparently the highest winds anyone has ever been sent out in topped at 63 mph.

[Bob Jenkins]

I really learned something about playing in wind on my first trip to Scotland in 1991. At the time, I was packing a Taylor Made 1 iron with a thick flange which had been my godsend on my home course in Vancouver. Great for punching out shots from under trees.

I found that the only way I could get any reasonable distance off the tee in the Scottish winds was with the same 1 iron which I used a lot on that trip. I recall that I rarely used my 3 wood. Also with my driver, I tended to hit a high ball at the time and getting the ball up in the wind was a curse.

So when I think of wind I think of that 1 iron which I still have in the garage. Maybe should pull it out and see if I can still hit it.

There were some pretty severe winds in Scotland that trip but I would guess the worst was in the 40 mph range. That 1 iron had a lot of work for those two weeks. I guess I was able to keep it low and let it draw and the resultant run was something I could never get with a wood.

Bob Jenkins
 

[Ron Farris]

Thursday I played the Bully Pulpit GC in Medora, North Dakota.
The wind was easily a steady 25-30 mph (imho) with gusts well over that.  I will say that it made some holes very difficult to play, namely the holes along the river on the front.  I found the experience to be more fun than playing Hawktree in Bismarck on a calm day, which I did on Friday.
Thankfully the greens were not fast.  They have had quite a bit of rain lately.

[Adam Clayman]

Once had a group at Spyglass that were all from Chicago. Naturally, these guys were mine befroe even teeing off. On the way down the first fairway, approaching their second shots, one of the guys asked me if this was a three club wind. Since we right at that critical point on the hole where the golfer is finally exposed to the full force of the Ocean wind (out of the trees) I looked around, did a few cursory calculations and held up a handful inorder to tell the guy it was a five club wind. On the downhill 3rd from 153 that plays 135 with no wind, I gave the guy a 3 iron to hit. He pured the thing pin high just right of the green, but still on that little sliver of grass before the ice plant long.

Playing in tourneys at PG, we would keep playing when the boys down the street playing in the AT&T would pack it in. There was serious wind and I seem to recall hitting 4 irons from wedge territory and 200 yard eight irons. The satisfaction (and fun factor) of finishing a tourney in those conditions was evident on each and every face as they entered the clubhouse. Ear to ear grins.

[JSlonis]

I remember the windiest day I ever played like it was yesterday.  It was actually day 4 of my first trip to Scotland in August 2003.  We played 36 holes that day starting out at The Old Course followed up by a round at Crail.

For years I had been planning how I wanted to play the first hole at TOC, but standing on that hallowed 1st tee with a steady 35-40 MPH wind in my face, all that planning was out the door.  I nailed a driver down the middle and then had 108 to the middle of the green.  Thankfully my friend had hit his approach before me, or I would have not known what to hit.  I somehow managed to hit a 7 iron onto the left center of the green!   I usually hit my 7 iron 170 yards.  

We were all carrying our own bags for the round and learned very quickly that our "stand bags" were of little use.  They kept getting blown over, so we laid them on the ground for the rest of the round.

What amazed me most of all was the fact that even with the extreme wind, 35 mph steady with gusts over 50 mph, the great Old Course was still very playable.  The ball was oscillating on the greens and you definitely had to account for it while putting. After a wild day hitting every type of shot imaginable, I was able to hit my driver on the left edge of the 18th green and two putt for a birdie for an even par round of 72.  That was about the most fun I've ever had on a golf course.

Much to our surprise, when we arrived for our afternoon round at Crail, it was even windier.  Crail was even more exposed to the wind than TOC.  Needless to say, it was another wild round.

I'll never forget that great day!

[Andy Troeger]

Probably the most fun round in some wind was at Pradera a month ago. The wind was not ridiculous, maybe 20-30 throughout the day.

On #14 up a pretty serious hill into the wind I hit driver & 8-iron on a 370 par four and came up short. Two holes later going down the mountain with the wind at our backs I hit a drive 480 yards then wedge 160 over the green on a 635 yard par five. Never done that before  

[Norbert P]

Connemara with stinging rain.  What a trudge of an ordeal. Loved every miserable moment.  Barely lived to tell about it. Great stew after with a reinvigorating Guinness, of course.

[Rich Goodale]

a 480 yard 6-iron, Sean?

Big hitter, the Arble.......

[Rich Goodale]

I have points of reference from my childhood, in the good old days (the 1950's) before trailer parks when Hurricanes used to seem to flit over the irrelevant South and then land in New England.  At the low end of the scale (c. 75mph) a 100-lb 10-year old child (e.g. moi) could lean backwards into the wind without falling back or being blown forward head over heels.  It was a wonderful sense of suspended animation and/or disbelief.  Now being far closer to double that weight than is necessary, I can imagine playing golf in such a wind, although not scoring particulalry well.

Having spent more than 1/2 of my life since 1978 in Britain, I have played in some very heavy winds, some of which would have made it hard for the 100 lb. Rich to stand upright.  I have no idea (nor do I care) what were the actual wind speeds, but I do know that I have NEVER seen a ball on a green blown off it's mark in those 29 years of golfing in Britain and Ireland.  It must have something to do with the agronomy.

One of my favorite storeis, which I have related beofre on here, so this is for the newbies and the sahort of memory.....

There was once a winter tournament at Dornoch where the wind was blowing so hard that local legend Jimmy Miller won with a 73 when nobody else came close to breaking 80.  Jimmy was disqualified, however, as he and his group had inadvertently played the Medal tees, rather than the shorter (Yellow) ones which the Committee had chosen for the day.

Rich

PS--there are few more satisfying shots in golf than the purely struck drive into a howling gale.

[Anthony Butler]

Wind is a fact of life growing up in Sydney. I have seen the wind blow the ball UP the hill and off the green countless times.

Play NSW enough times and you'll know the 5th as both a short par 4 and an unreachable par 5.

It's a heavy wind too. i.e. full of moisture. When you play in Arizona you don't even think about a different club until it gets to 20 mph.

[Tommy_Naccarato]

I was with Ed that day at Rustic Canyon, as was Bill Cosgrove, Rob Waldron, David Kelly, David Moriarty and many others, and it was brutal, but it in no way compared to the one day I played Industry Hills, Babe Zaharias course in a 'light' 65 MPH Santa Ana from what the Industry Hills cognoscenti call, "The Back Of The Blacks." (tees)

The wind was so strong that day it was estimated to have done over $250,000 in fallen tree damage on the Ike Eisenhower course alone, so they closed it. That didn't stop the Babe from wreeking her havoc though, and the worst of it came at the Par 4, 13th, where I hit a rocket of a 3 iron and watched it more or less boomerang in front of me and literally fly 35-40 yards behine me.

Now that was wind....

[wsmorrison]

Ed Baker and a friend played with Bill Dow and I on Merion West in steady 50 mph winds.  Bill is a lifelong sailor and knows his wind speeds estimating some gusts at around 60 mph.  This is an old course with old trees.  They seemed bent beyond belief in this steady wind.  Debris and leaves were coming off the trees and raining down on us.  I can still recall the sight of Bill climbing the hill from 5 tee to green with the wind coming off our starboard side.  It only lasted a couple of holes, but that was some blow.

My brother and I played Carnoustie for the first time in wind and rain that was steadily sideways.  The locals did not go out on the course that day and the guarantee of a good payday was the only way we could get a caddy to go out with us.  I didn't see another group out there but my head was down the whole time.  The next time we played there, I remembered very little because I wasn't looking around the first time.  Balls were blowing all over the green and lofted shots (I hadn't learned about the ground game at that point) were blowing back toward us as they lost forward momentum.

[TEPaul]

I think the windiest day I ever played was at Seminole once. I wish I could tell you how I tried to play that excessive wind but I can't. I guess I just repressed the whole thing. All I remember is it definitely was not pretty golf. I remember the guy I was playing with who was a very good player from Philly tried to hit the ball up in the air like he always did. That was even less pretty. It was butt-ugly actually. That day showed me just how much really excessive wind can take a golf ball its way. That guy tried stuff like aiming fifty yards left of a green to ride the wind and the wind would take his ball what seemed like close to 100 yards. Into the wind you definitely felt like a mouse.  

[Mark Chaplin]

Playing in Kent winter trial many years ago at Littlestone a 150 yd par 3 required a driver and my playing partner was the only player to break 80 shooting a remarkable 72. The handicap range was +2 to 4 so there were some pretty sharpe players around.

At Deal we regularily get 4 to 5 club winds and rarely go below 2 club breezes. I once knocked a 3 iron onto the back of the 10th green only to watch it get blown off the front edge whilst I walked up.

I was playing with a couple of members at Royal Melbourne a couple of years ago. The greens were 13 on the stimp which scared the life out of me. Apparently 3 or 4 days a year they get 50mph hot winds off the land which make the greens unplayable. They told me Lee Trevino walked off as they wer impossible to play

[W.H. Cosgrove]

Bandon a few years back with winds gusting to 66MPH per Troy Russell.  Steady winds had to be 35-40.  I managed a respectable 100.  

Next day temps in mid sixties, not a cloud in the sky and no wind.  Pacific was an easier task as I shot 71.  That has to be my largest one day swing in score!

[Brad Klein]

Have twice played Durness in 50 mph gales, which are probably normal way up there atop Scotland. Second time there, with Cosgrove, Liddy and Rapoport, we were met after the 9-holes at the little clubhouse by a batty old lady who looked like a Kathy Bates who had forgotten to take her thorazine. She said she and her husband, both from the Midwest, had been there for about 20 years and that after all those years "the wind beat our brains out."

[Michael Whitaker]

On my first visit to Ireland we were scheduled to play the Old Course at Lahinch on the day after our arrival. Everyone was so excited we decided we couldn't wait until the next day to hit a golf ball, so we secured a starting time on the Castle Course. I don't know the velocity of the wind that day, but it was blowing so hard that you could lean into it and not fall over. There were times when a sudden mega gust would hit you in the back and knock you forward or drop you to your knees. I've never experienced a day like it again. Hats, towels, balls, sunglasses... everything not tied down was flying all over the place! It was quite an experience and I'm still not sure it was a pleasant one. I definitely would not go out in that weather again... it was an exersize in futility. Still, it was a day I will never forget.

[Jeff Doerr]

Bandon a few years back with winds gusting to 66MPH per Troy Russell.  Steady winds had to be 35-40.  I managed a respectable 100.  

Next day temps in mid sixties, not a cloud in the sky and no wind.  Pacific was an easier task as I shot 71.  That has to be my largest one day swing in score!

Mine has to be Bandon Dunes also...

Probably only 40+ mph, but combined with a steady driving rain. I shot 98 that day to beat my buddy who was about a 4 handicap at the time. I think I was a 6 or 7. The wind was howling, but the greens stayed puttable due in part to the moisture.

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