Opinion & Analysis
How to shoot better scores in windy conditions
As we start to move into the tropical storm season in my home state of Florida, I want to go through the research I’ve done on the data on the PGA Tour with regards to performance in windy conditions. I feel that all golfers can use this information to perform better when the wind starts to blow harder.
First, I had to determine how I wanted to measure the data. What I discovered early on is that, speaking generally, the better player will tend to perform better in different conditions. So Rory McIlroy will tend to shoot better scores than say, renowned wind player Stuart Appleby. McIlroy is simply a better player than Appleby. However, that does not mean that we should follow McIlroy’s example of how to play in the wind.
Instead, I wanted to see what players on Tour improve and what golfers improve in performance when the wind starts to pick up. I used the Adjusted Scoring Average method (defined below) in order to measure this level of improvement.
[quote_box_center]Adjusted Scoring Average: A formula that subtracts the average score for the round from par. Then that difference is added to the golfer’s score. For example, if a golfer shoots 66 on a par-72 course and the average score was a 74.5 for the day, the golfer’s score would be adjusted to 63.5.[/quote_box_center]
For this study, I needed to look at the wind speeds for the morning versus afternoon rounds and adjust the scores accordingly. As we know, most of the time there is much less wind in the morning than in the afternoon. So I had to figure out the scoring average of the morning group versus the afternoon groups.
From there, I wanted to see what players had the largest change in their Adjusted Scoring Average rankings in “windy” versus “non-windy” conditions.
Windy vs. Non-Windy Conditions
With measuring wind speed, there is the average wind speed and there are maximum wind gusts. Sometimes the average wind speed does not give an accurate depiction of how windy it was that day. When combining the average wind speed with the wind gusts, I started to see a more accurate picture. Wind gusts are defined as a peak speed of wind that usually lasts less than 20 seconds. If the average wind speed was the same on two different rounds, the day with the larger wind gusts would produce higher scores.
I used a simple formula that took the average of the average wind speed and wind gust speed and I called it Wind Velocity. Here’s an example:
(5 mph average wind speed + 10 mph wind gust)/2 = 7.5 wind velocity
The wind velocity on Tour ranges from 5 to 25 mph. But the range of Wind Velocity that is most frequent is 9 to 12 mph. Perhaps the most interesting finding was that the Tour started to see a noticeable increase in scores as a whole when the Wind Velocity was greater than 12 mph.
My interpretation? Once the Wind Velocity is at 12 mph, it can make at least a one-club difference on an into-the-wind approach shot. And as we know, the tailwind in golf does not benefit the golfer at the same equivalent of how much a headwind hurts a golfer.
In the end, I measured the rounds as:
- Windy conditions having a Wind Velocity of greater than 12 mph
- Non-windy conditions having a Wind Velocity at 12 mph or less.
Common Traits of the Best Wind Players
Here’s a list of players with the largest improvement and the players with the largest regression in “windy” conditions compared to “non-windy” conditions over the past five seasons on the PGA Tour:
When looking at the entire list of players and their level of improvement/regression when the Wind Velocity was more than 12 mph, I started to see the following commonalities in their metrics:
- The most improved players tend to be more conservative off the tee, in general, laying up off the tee and not using driver.
- The most improved players tend to be less aggressive on par-5s, by laying up instead of going for the green in two shots.
- The players with the largest regression tend to be poor from the Green Zone (approach shots from 75-125 yards).
- The players with the largest regression tend to be poor on short game shots from inside 20 yards around the green.
- The most improved players appear to hit the driver with a downward attack angle.
A trend that appears to exist, but on a smaller level, is that the most improved players tend to be less effective drivers of the ball in general.
The trends are certainly open to interpretation. My feeling is that there is a psychology to being comfortable with laying up off the tee and on par-5s. When playing in windy conditions, players are more apt to have to lay up because the wind will throw the ball offline. The players that lay up often in non-windy conditions are now more comfortable with having to lay-up when the wind picks up.
The downward attack angle with the driver makes perfect sense. You’re trying to flight the ball lower so the wind does not throw it offline. Players that have a pronounced upward attack angle like Bubba, Keegan and Kyle Stanley are going to have more difficulty keeping the ball out of the wind.
As for the Short Game shots around the green, when the conditions become windy the greens in regulation percentage drops and therefore the golfer has to be able to convert scrambling opportunities. But what surprised me a bit is that the most improved players had a trend of being better from the Green Zone (75-125 yards).
My guess why is twofold:
- In windy conditions, the players are not likely able to go for par-5s in two shots, therefore they have to lay up to that Green Zone range.
- In windy conditions, the players are more likely to hit their drives offline and then have to hit a rescue shot instead of being able to go for the green, so they have to save par from the Green Zone.
For those using this at home, I would recommend using your smart phone weather app to see what the wind speed is and where the wind is coming from. Since it is now legal to use a compass during a round of golf, more diligent golfers can use it to determine where the wind is coming from when the wind starts to swirl a bit. And if the wind speeds are faster than 12 mph, golfers may want to focus on being a bit more conservative in strategy off the tee and on par-5s while working on their wedges before they go out to play.
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The PGA TOUR heads to New Orleans to play the 2023 Zurich Classic of New Orleans. In a welcome change from the usual stroke play, the Zurich Classic is a team event. On Thursday and Saturday, the teams play best ball, and on Friday and Sunday the teams play alternate shot.
TPC Louisiana is a par 72 that measures 7,425 yards. The course features some short par 4s and plenty of water and bunkers, which makes for a lot of exciting risk/reward scenarios for competitors. Pete Dye designed the course in 2004 specifically for the Zurich Classic, although the event didn’t make its debut until 2007 because of Hurricane Katrina.
Coming off of the Masters and a signature event in consecutive weeks, the field this week is a step down, and understandably so. Many of the world’s top players will be using this time to rest after a busy stretch.
However, there are some interesting teams this season with some stars making surprise appearances in the team event. Some notable teams include Patrick Cantlay and Xander Schauffele, Rory McIlroy and Shane Lowry, Collin Morikawa and Kurt Kitayama, Will Zalatoris and Sahith Theegala as well as a few Canadian teams, Nick Taylor and Adam Hadwin and Taylor Pendrith and Corey Conners.
Past Winners at TPC Louisiana
- 2023: Riley/Hardy (-30)
- 2022: Cantlay/Schauffele (-29)
- 2021: Leishman/Smith (-20)
- 2019: Palmer/Rahm (-26)
- 2018: Horschel/Piercy (-22)
- 2017: Blixt/Smith (-27)
2024 Zurich Classic of New Orleans Picks
Tom Hoge/Maverick McNealy +2500 (DraftKings)
Tom Hoge is coming off of a solid T18 finish at the RBC Heritage and finished T13 at last year’s Zurich Classic alongside Harris English.
This season, Hoge is having one of his best years on Tour in terms of Strokes Gained: Approach. In his last 24 rounds, the only player to top him on the category is Scottie Scheffler. Hoge has been solid on Pete Dye designs, ranking 28th in the field over his past 36 rounds.
McNealy is also having a solid season. He’s finished T6 at the Waste Management Phoenix Open and T9 at the PLAYERS Championship. He recently started working with world renowned swing coach, Butch Harmon, and its seemingly paid dividends in 2024.
Keith Mitchell/Joel Dahmen +4000 (DraftKings)
Keith Mitchell is having a fantastic season, finishing in the top-20 of five of his past seven starts on Tour. Most recently, Mitchell finished T14 at the Valero Texas Open and gained a whopping 6.0 strokes off the tee. He finished 6th at last year’s Zurich Classic.
Joel Dahmen is having a resurgent year and has been dialed in with his irons. He also has a T11 finish at the PLAYERS Championship at TPC Sawgrass which is another Pete Dye track. With Mitchell’s length and Dahmen’s ability to put it close with his short irons, the Mitchell/Dahmen combination will be dangerous this week.
Taylor Moore/Matt NeSmith +6500 (DraftKings)
Taylor Moore has quickly developed into one of the more consistent players on Tour. He’s finished in the top-20 in three of his past four starts, including a very impressive showing at The Masters, finishing T20. He’s also finished T4 at this event in consecutive seasons alongside Matt NeSmith.
NeSmith isn’t having a great 2024, but has seemed to elevate his game in this format. He finished T26 at Pete Dye’s TPC Sawgrass, which gives the 30-year-old something to build off of. NeSmith is also a great putter on Bermudagrass, which could help elevate Moore’s ball striking prowess.
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After having four of the top twelve players on the leaderboard at The Masters, LIV Golf is set for their fifth event of the season: LIV Adelaide.
For both LIV fans and golf fans in Australia, LIV Adelaide is one of the most anticipated events of the year. With 35,000 people expected to attend each day of the tournament, the Grange Golf Club will be crawling with fans who are passionate about the sport of golf. The 12th hole, better known as “the watering hole”, is sure to have the rowdiest of the fans cheering after a long day of drinking some Leishman Lager.
The Grange Golf Club is a par-72 that measures 6,946 yards. The course features minimal resistance, as golfers went extremely low last season. In 2023, Talor Gooch shot consecutive rounds of 62 on Thursday and Friday, giving himself a gigantic cushion heading into championship Sunday. Things got tight for a while, but in the end, the Oklahoma State product was able to hold off The Crushers’ Anirban Lahiri for a three-shot victory.
The Four Aces won the team competition with the Range Goats finishing second.
*All Images Courtesy of LIV Golf*
Past Winners at LIV Adelaide
- 2023: Talor Gooch (-19)
Stat Leaders Through LIV Miami
Green in Regulation
- Richard Bland
- Jon Rahm
- Paul Casey
Fairways Hit
- Abraham Ancer
- Graeme McDowell
- Henrik Stenson
Driving Distance
- Bryson DeChambeau
- Joaquin Niemann
- Dean Burmester
Putting
- Cameron Smith
- Louis Oosthuizen
- Matt Jones
2024 LIV Adelaide Picks
Cameron Smith +1400 (DraftKings)
When I pulled up the odds for LIV Adelaide, I was more than a little surprised to see multiple golfers listed ahead of Cameron Smith on the betting board. A few starts ago, Cam finished runner-up at LIV Hong Kong, which is a golf course that absolutely suits his eye. Augusta National in another course that Smith could roll out of bed and finish in the top-ten at, and he did so two weeks ago at The Masters, finishing T6.
At Augusta, he gained strokes on the field on approach, off the tee (slightly), and of course, around the green and putting. Smith able to get in the mix at a major championship despite coming into the week feeling under the weather tells me that his game is once again rounding into form.
The Grange Golf Club is another course that undoubtedly suits the Australian. Smith is obviously incredibly comfortable playing in front of the Aussie faithful and has won three Australian PGA Championship’s. The course is very short and will allow Smith to play conservative off the tee, mitigating his most glaring weakness. With birdies available all over the golf course, there’s a chance the event turns into a putting contest, and there’s no one on the planet I’d rather have in one of those than Cam Smith.
Louis Oosthuizen +2200 (DraftKings)
Louis Oosthuizen has simply been one of the best players on LIV in the 2024 seas0n. The South African has finished in the top-10 on the LIV leaderboard in three of his five starts, with his best coming in Jeddah, where he finished T2. Perhaps more impressively, Oosthuizen finished T7 at LIV Miami, which took place at Doral’s “Blue Monster”, an absolutely massive golf course. Given that Louis is on the shorter side in terms of distance off the tee, his ability to play well in Miami shows how dialed he is with the irons this season.
In addition to the LIV finishes, Oosthuizen won back-to-back starts on the DP World Tour in December at the Alfred Dunhill Championship and the Mauritus Open. He also finished runner-up at the end of February in the International Series Oman. The 41-year-old has been one of the most consistent performers of 2024, regardless of tour.
For the season, Louis ranks 4th on LIV in birdies made, T9 in fairways hit and first in putting. He ranks 32nd in driving distance, but that won’t be an issue at this short course. Last season, he finished T11 at the event, but was in decent position going into the final round but fell back after shooting 70 while the rest of the field went low. This season, Oosthuizen comes into the event in peak form, and the course should be a perfect fit for his smooth swing and hot putter this week.
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Of all the clubs in our bags, wedges are almost always the simplest in construction and, therefore, the easiest to analyze what might make one work differently from another if you know what to look for.
Wedges are a lot less mysterious than drivers, of course, as the major brands are working with a lot of “pixie dust” inside these modern marvels. That’s carrying over more to irons now, with so many new models featuring internal multi-material technologies, and almost all of them having a “badge” or insert in the back to allow more complex graphics while hiding the actual distribution of mass.
But when it comes to wedges, most on the market today are still single pieces of molded steel, either cast or forged into that shape. So, if you look closely at where the mass is distributed, it’s pretty clear how that wedge is going to perform.
To start, because of their wider soles, the majority of the mass of almost any wedge is along the bottom third of the clubhead. So, the best wedge shots are always those hit between the 2nd and 5th grooves so that more mass is directly behind that impact. Elite tour professionals practice incessantly to learn to do that consistently, wearing out a spot about the size of a penny right there. If impact moves higher than that, the face is dramatically thinner, so smash factor is compromised significantly, which reduces the overall distance the ball will fly.
Every one of us, tour players included, knows that maddening shot that we feel a bit high on the face and it doesn’t go anywhere, it’s not your fault.
If your wedges show a wear pattern the size of a silver dollar, and centered above the 3rd or 4th groove, you are not getting anywhere near the same performance from shot to shot. Robot testing proves impact even two to three grooves higher in the face can cause distance loss of up to 35 to 55 feet with modern ‘tour design’ wedges.
In addition, as impact moves above the center of mass, the golf club principle of gear effect causes the ball to fly higher with less spin. Think of modern drivers for a minute. The “holy grail” of driving is high launch and low spin, and the driver engineers are pulling out all stops to get the mass as low in the clubhead as possible to optimize this combination.
Where is all the mass in your wedges? Low. So, disregarding the higher lofts, wedges “want” to launch the ball high with low spin – exactly the opposite of what good wedge play requires penetrating ball flight with high spin.
While almost all major brand wedges have begun putting a tiny bit more thickness in the top portion of the clubhead, conventional and modern ‘tour design’ wedges perform pretty much like they always have. Elite players learn to hit those crisp, spinny penetrating wedge shots by spending lots of practice time learning to consistently make contact low in the face.
So, what about grooves and face texture?
Grooves on any club can only do so much, and no one has any material advantage here. The USGA tightly defines what we manufacturers can do with grooves and face texture, and modern manufacturing techniques allow all of us to push those limits ever closer. And we all do. End of story.
Then there’s the topic of bounce and grinds, the most complex and confusing part of the wedge formula. Many top brands offer a complex array of sole configurations, all of them admittedly specialized to a particular kind of lie or turf conditions, and/or a particular divot pattern.
But if you don’t play the same turf all the time, and make the same size divot on every swing, how would you ever figure this out?
The only way is to take any wedge you are considering and play it a few rounds, hitting all the shots you face and observing the results. There’s simply no other way.
So, hopefully this will inspire a lively conversation in our comments section, and I’ll chime in to answer any questions you might have.
And next week, I’ll dive into the rest of the wedge formula. Yes, shafts, grips and specifications are essential, too.
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Scott
May 28, 2015 at 9:18 am
This is a very interesting article. I have improved my wind play by mentally accepting the conditions instead of worrying or complaining. A week at Bandon Dunes changed my idea of what wind really is. I look at it as another hazard that has to be negotiated.
Roonster
May 24, 2015 at 4:26 pm
Theres on dobt 12 mph is a significant number this means that a stratergy is needed soft hands ball back in stance and finishing loe ,find the middle of the club and accept what you get if you get it right then fine if not accept this it may not be your fault
when chipping keep it low if you can try to keep it on the floor make it work for you as
a stratergy its fun and you can learn the skills come to the uk and you will need those skills
Steve
May 23, 2015 at 9:40 am
If you live/play in a area where windy conditions are normal, south florida. Texas etc . You learn to play in it through trial and error. If you live in a area where wind isnt a factor normally it will be harder for you. I grew up in the northeast where wind was a non factor so hitting high bombs was the play. Now i am in south florida and high bombs are death sentence here. So you change your game to fit. Which is mid piercing draws or low tee driver bullets. But it does take time to get use too
Regis
May 27, 2015 at 9:55 am
Totally agree. I’ve played most of my golf on Long Island . First 25 on an inland course. Last 2 on a course where the back nine abuts the water. Wind can be fierce. Learned by trial and error (mostly error). My favorite shot is hitting a tee shot into the wind coming off the bay and riding the wind into the center of the fairway . When it works
Martin
May 22, 2015 at 8:38 pm
I have spent the last 7 years first on the Prairie where it was always windy and now near the Atlantic ocean where the same thing exists.
Into the wind, or even worse an in my face coming a bit from the right I almost always hit a 3w. I still hit it hard but can hit it almost dead straight. Over the years I found extra club and hit the ball very straight with no fade or draw is the best way to play in windy conditions.
My regular swing now except with a driver which is a fade is almost always dead straight, I gues I taught myself to keep the club sq
Jonny B
May 22, 2015 at 3:41 pm
Sergio hits down on the ball almost more than anyone else on tour. He takes mammoth divots with his 3 wood. Yet he’s on the bad wind player list… what gives? Kind of refutes your theory.
Richie Hunt
May 23, 2015 at 10:16 am
First, it’s trends, so it doesn’t mean that there will never be an exception to the rule. Secondly, Sergio over the years has not been that good from 75-125 yards and his Short Game play has been suspect at times.
Desmond
May 22, 2015 at 10:16 am
So you’ re hitting down on the driver, placing more spin on the ball… okay, I assume the downward AOA must be slight for tour players.
Thomas Beckett
May 22, 2015 at 11:12 am
If a player decreases the angle of attack from say 2 degrees upward to 2 degrees downward with a driver or any club for that matter, and also decreases the loft by the same amount which in this case is 4, the spin loft remains the same so there would be ZERO increase or decrease in backspin. Hitting up more or down more is only one part to changing the spin rates.
Desmond
May 22, 2015 at 11:17 am
Thx. Yes, I thought you’d have to decrease left to minimize spin. Of course, I’ve also heard the old saw that in the wind, tee it high and let it fly … that seems defeating against the wind.
With iron approaches, I’ve played with guys who take more club and keep it low, and guys who take more club, make a full swing, and let it fly – they let the wind balloon it and knock it down onto the green. That is interesting to watch and do …
Rich Hunt
May 22, 2015 at 11:32 am
I was just reporting what the data shows. Some players like Trevor Immelman (plays more effectively in the wind) have a very steep attack angle and high spin rates. But, he also hits the ball very low. However, I didn’t put that in the end of the article as something to do because I think changing your AoA and still hit the ball well is probably difficult to do.
The dude
May 22, 2015 at 6:53 am
Most amateurs don’t use enough club….for them it’s too much to swallow a little pride and hit that 8 iron from 125….instead of muscling a wedge
Cliff
May 22, 2015 at 10:50 am
Agreed! Most amateurs think they can hit any club an extra 5-10 yards by swinging harder. This just isn’t the case. Take the extra club or 2 and swing easy.
Rich Hunt
May 22, 2015 at 11:30 am
Old Florida saying…’when it’s breezy, swing easy.’ There have been some YouTube videos showing people with Trackman and showing the numbers why hitting more club and swinging less forcefully is beneficial in the wind.
Matt
May 21, 2015 at 11:09 am
Growing up in Oklahoma taught me a lot about how to play in the wind. The trick for me is to keep my grip light and swing easy. If you try to control the ball too much you’ll end up making a bad swing.
Duncan Castles
May 21, 2015 at 11:01 am
Informative and helpful. As always…
Thanks Rich.
Tom Stickney
May 21, 2015 at 9:47 am
Brilliant
Jeez Utz
May 23, 2015 at 8:32 am
Like you would know
devilsadvocate
May 23, 2015 at 11:55 am
Actually yes he would… Tom is a class A PGA pro and director of instruction… Ooops! You may now remove your proverbial foot from your mouth