You UK guys, do you play in this stuff?

[larrybud]

Obviously no lightening, but today (friday) the weather is brutal.

 

Do you guys who live over there actually play in this stuff or would you call it a day?

[jay65]

Obviously no lightening, but today (friday) the weather is brutal.

 

Do you guys who live over there actually play in this stuff or would you call it a day?

 

Normal day on the Links I'm afraid. You just take what you're given, smile and get on with it. I once played at Western Gailes in 45-50mph gusts and driving rain, so this weather is a mild zephyr by comparison. All good fun. And it works up a great appetite for when you get home, and you sleep like a log! :taunt:

[cardoustie]

Jay

I'm one upping you - played The Old in 60mph and rain.

Next day was 80-100mph and the starter at Muirfield told us not to waste our money

[jay65]

Jay

I'm one upping you - played The Old in 60mph and rain.

Next day was 80-100mph and the starter at Muirfield told us not to waste our money

 

Absolutely......I would have just asked him to point me the way to the 1st tee please. Seriously though, it kinda changes ones' whole game, so much so, that when I go down south and play parkland courses I actually really struggle to score more often than not. I can get it around places like Prestwick, Troon, Dundonald and North Berwick in 74-75, then I go back down to Oxford to play a local Par Parkland Course and I can struggle to shoot 78 sometimes!! Funny ol' game eh?

[MtlJeff]

Hardest thing about playing in the wind a lot is you have no idea what your "real" distances are. June is usually terrible for us with wind and rain though not as bad as the UK obviously

 

But then when you finally get a decent day you overshoot every green LOL

[cardoustie]

so true Jeff, you so rarely have to hit a 120 yard shot into a 30mph wind (50kmh for Canucks) ... it is just pure guess work

 

Even more fun if you have to carry a pond

 

I know what most of my knockdowns carry in a 2 club wind but beyond two clubs, there's an element of luck IMO

[jay65]

It's also why I rarely bother with GPS or laser yardage gadgets, they can be pretty much irrelevant really. You have to 'feel' the distance, and that normally comes with some time playing Links Golf.

[GolfNuts4]

Terrific to hear you guys gut it out. Getting over there is definitely on my "Bucket List". Although playing in those conditions terrifies a south Florida boy!

[jay65]

Terrific to hear you guys gut it out. Getting over there is definitely on my "Bucket List". Although playing in those conditions terrifies a south Florida boy!

 

Good to see someone from across the pond actually relishing the challenge of some Links golf, instead of whining about how The Open Championship is a joke because of the changeable weather and how it effects the draw (Yawn). It's an outdoor sport, where the weather does and should be expected to play as much a part as whether a putt breaks left to right by 3 inches or 6 inches. It's no more than another factor to consider when playing in these conditions. I embrace that extra challenge and it's what makes it more fun, rather than the point and shoot of parkland golf.

 

I heard an American notable PGA tour player say earlier in the week, that a 15mph wind over here in Scotland is such a heavy wind, and is the equivalent of a 25mph wind from where he is from. The player........Jimmy Walker, and he's a Texan!!

 

Seriously though, if you ever scrape the cash together one year to get over here, I'd be delighted to hook up with you and pair up for a few rounds. We're often up in Prestwick near Troon, so I'd be delighted to show you around some of the great Links Courses around the area in Ayrshire Like Royal Troon, Turnberry, Western Gailes, Prestwick, Dundonald, Glasgow Gailes, and Kilmarnock Barassie. You'd be pleasantly shocked!

[North Butte]

If I'm visiting UK for a week while on golf vacation I would play through most of what they've had so far at Troon. There was a 3-4 hour stretch of of Friday's weather that I would have waited out in the clubhouse, though.

 

Of course I don't play from the Open tees and don't have to keep a medal card...

[Ivyguy]

Part of the reason we get educated in the Ryder cup.

 

They're tougher than us.

 

Google "minimalist manifesto tom doak" and read the article. Makes A LOT of sense.

[Santiago Golf]

I don't know about UK, but we play is the same stuff here in Michigan March to May and then again September to December

[flog2]

yep, we play in it, and hate it.

 

Now I only play in it if its a comp, and it wasnt bad on the first.

 

Absolutely zero fun walking around a field getting peed on, cold, miserable and way over your handicap

[RSinSG]

I admit to being a golf lightweight. I have no desire to play in those conditions, and that's why I'll never make the pilgrimage to the Old Course. I have spent almost all of my life in year-round golf locations, and if it rains or is windy I'll stay home and play the next day. In Palm Springs I've been mid-round when it started blowing so bad we had to stop. The ball would not sit still so we stopped after 12 holes.

 

My hat is off to you guys who play in rough weather. It would be a waste of money for me because I would be miserable and whiny. (I said I was a lightweight.)

[One_Putt_Blunder]

I'm headed over next year for 8-9 rounds. I can't wait. I look forward to the challenge of the conditions. I grew up playing in the wind off the SF bay and even here in AZ spring/monsoon season 25+ not uncommon however 98% of our courses weren't designed to be played in high winds. You want to talk about a challenge try playing desert target golf when it's blowing 30 and the ground game is not an option because of forced carries

[Lord Helmet]

You fellas have my respect for playing in that. I'm a sissy. Kudos.

[flog2]

I admit to being a golf lightweight. I have no desire to play in those conditions, and that's why I'll never make the pilgrimage to the Old Course. I have spent almost all of my life in year-round golf locations, and if it rains or is windy I'll stay home and play the next day. In Palm Springs I've been mid-round when it started blowing so bad we had to stop. The ball would not sit still so we stopped after 12 holes.

 

My hat is off to you guys who play in rough weather. It would be a waste of money for me because I would be miserable and whiny. (I said I was a lightweight.)

 

we are also miserable and whiny, but if we dont play in it we dont play.............weather can be like this most of summer sometimes

[scottishpedro]

There are a 2 main reasons why I play in almost any conditions here in Scotland. The first because I work hard all week and look forward to my golf at the weekend, if it's wet and windy I either play or sit around and sulk. The second and most important is if you don't play/practice in this weather then you will never be good at playing in those conditions when it really matters. A good example was a club championship final I played in on the links in terrible conditions. I was quite comfortable and my opponent had no idea how to cope!

 

 

[Matt J]

I've spent most of my life guiding people around the outdoors, you're not playing golf in sustained wind over 50 or 60 mph.

 

Gusts over 60 mph will pull you off your feet. I think there's a little hyperbole or a metric conversion issue going on in this thread.

 

To each their own, but 25 mph or so with gusts is about my max for enjoying the round. Three clubs of wind. Great for match play, but you aren't posting a number. That's U.S. links golf though. Maybe the Scots are really that much tougher than we are.

[RSinSG]

I admit to being a golf lightweight. I have no desire to play in those conditions, and that's why I'll never make the pilgrimage to the Old Course. I have spent almost all of my life in year-round golf locations, and if it rains or is windy I'll stay home and play the next day. In Palm Springs I've been mid-round when it started blowing so bad we had to stop. The ball would not sit still so we stopped after 12 holes.

 

My hat is off to you guys who play in rough weather. It would be a waste of money for me because I would be miserable and whiny. (I said I was a lightweight.)

 

we are also miserable and whiny, but if we dont play in it we dont play.............weather can be like this most of summer sometimes

 

If summer is like this what is it like playing in the winter? Or are you like our Northern States guys who have to pack it in for 5-6 months?

[katbird]

I've alway felt that the vagaries of the course and the weather makes links golf a great equalizer for bogey amateurs, especially short hitters like me who must make up for lack of distance with a short game.

 

Nothing new here, I know but...

 

Watching links golf has always convinced me (out of vanity perhaps) that golf is the most difficult of all sports. There is no constant in the game...not the court nor field nor pitch dimensions players find in other sports, but even more importantly, players have to adapt a variety of equipment on virtually every shot, every day, to the conditions.

 

I have had a great summer playing in strong winds (though not thunderstorms) here in south Florida in preparation for three Autumn weeks in Scotland, choking down on a 3 wood to keep the ball below the tree line, and taking a 52° gapper into the bunker for a variety of unconventional escape shots. I've had fun even finding proper clothes to play in.

 

And so, I'm looking forward to Scotland in September/October, come rain or shine, for driving through the highlands and hiking through history. As a photographer I dread blank blue skies ....give me an ominous Steven Spielberg sky to drive under down highways and fairways any day.

 

One thing TV coverage could do to "grow the game" would be to show the tee-boxes from where we mere mortals would play on those blind tee shots, like on Troon's 10th and 11th.

 

I should also mention I'm grateful to all the members of this forum for their recommendations on "hidden gems" to play as I'm just one of those workaday golfers happy to go to my local muni and practice chipping and putting for an hour on my way home.

 

Thanks.

[jay65]

If I could male any positive comment, it would be that many golfers come over here, see and feel the heavy wind (and I can assure you that a 25 mph wind on a Scottish Links is absolutely nothing like a 25 mph wind in mid state US), and they fight and play against it. Learn how to play with it, and use it to your advantage and you can still score well. This is the reason why so many Pros we see this week at Troon struggling. Many have absolutely no idea of how to use it to their advantage because of a lack of experience and negative thoughts, togehter with trying to physically fight it. This type of wind which is only at around 15-20mph can easily be used to your advantage, and a Golfer who knows how to use it can easily shoot 68-69. That score gets you way up the leaderboard up against the majority of the field who have no clue how to use this breeze in a positive way. This is the reason why all this arguing about whether the draw is fair or not at the Open Championship, is complete utter nonsense I'm afraid.

 

Sorry, that positive comment turned almost into a negative rant there for a moment! :cheesy:

[Matt J]

Jay, I couldn't agree with you more.

 

Don't want to derail the thread, but having recently moved near the sea and getting to play out on the coast, I've worked on my wind game quite a bit and am equally surprised so many professional players manage their games so poorly in the wind.

 

Recently, one of the "between majors" PGA Tour events had the wind come up in the afternoon on Sunday with a very tight leaderboard. Several guys get into the same position coming down the stretch that they have 150 yard shot, downwind with gusts, into a back pin. Every single one of them drops two clubs, so a 52 or 56 degree wedge and throws a super high shot into the wind to try and parachute the ball into the pin. I can only figure that they know something I don't know because it seemed ridiculous and did not work for any of them. The wind inevitably blew the ball over the green or stopped blowing and left them on the very front of the surface 50 or 60 feet from the stick. I've come to prefer a low trajectory with the wind at my back as much as in my face. But, perhaps the landing was just too small, the surface just too firm, to make that shot work. Seemed they couldn't have done any worse :)

 

I've never been to the Britian but lived awhile on the south island of New Zealand and imagine the wind to be similar. Here on the coast of the Pacific Northwest mainland USA we're a little too far south, in regards to latitude, to have those exact conditions, but we do get some interesting systems of weather.

[katbird]

Yeah....learning how to "play the break" in the air is fun...learning how far right or left the ball will carry back towards the target.

Back on the green, I practice hitting draw/fade chips into the slopes to "brake" the roll of the green with "English"....wonder where THAT term comes from?...off to google...

 

[edit: Apparently "English" spin comes from the English game of snooker/billiards where the pool cue puts spin on the ball, not so different from what we do in golf]

 

BTW, my name is Jay too!

[toophewbirdies]

If I could male any positive comment, it would be that many golfers come over here, see and feel the heavy wind (and I can assure you that a 25 mph wind on a Scottish Links is absolutely nothing like a 25 mph wind in mid state US), and they fight and play against it. Learn how to play with it, and use it to your advantage and you can still score well. This is the reason why so many Pros we see this week at Troon struggling. Many have absolutely no idea of how to use it to their advantage because of a lack of experience and negative thoughts, togehter with trying to physically fight it. This type of wind which is only at around 15-20mph can easily be used to your advantage, and a Golfer who knows how to use it can easily shoot 68-69. That score gets you way up the leaderboard up against the majority of the field who have no clue how to use this breeze in a positive way. This is the reason why all this arguing about whether the draw is fair or not at the Open Championship, is complete utter nonsense I'm afraid.

 

Sorry, that positive comment turned almost into a negative rant there for a moment! :cheesy:

 

You should start a course on how to play in these winds, before next years Open.

 

Could make a mint off these tour guys that are clueless on how to battle the winds..................

[jay65]

I've spent most of my life guiding people around the outdoors, you're not playing golf in sustained wind over 50 or 60 mph.

 

Gusts over 60 mph will pull you off your feet. I think there's a little hyperbole or a metric conversion issue going on in this thread.

 

To each their own, but 25 mph or so with gusts is about my max for enjoying the round. Three clubs of wind. Great for match play, but you aren't posting a number. That's U.S. links golf though. Maybe the Scots are really that much tougher than we are.

 

I don't think we're tougher per se, just used to simply accepting that if we want to play the game, then we have to get out in weather that maybe some of you across the pond may baulk at. I don't think that makes us 'tougher' just more accepting of the conditions and recognizing that it all part of the game of here.

 

If I could give some advice for anyone coming across, then it would be try and play the shots with less spin, as spin will kill you on a Scottish Links. Swing the club more neutral, and don't get steep on the ball, that extra spin will really hurt. For that reason it may be easier to take 2 clubs more and simply swing softer, that will impart less spin, make sure your swing path is nice and neutral, and that will help.

 

Secondly, try to learn to use the slopes and humps and bumps to your advantage. The real skill is recognizing which humps and slopes will hurt and which ones will help. The same slope from one side of the fairway will help whilst from the other side it may hurt you, so learning how and when to use these slopes and humps will help if your recognition and choices are correct. This is why you hear so many people saying how they don't like Links Golf because you can get so many bad bounces. Well, no, you just made the wrong choice of which slope to use advantageously. Certain sides of a fairways you should keep away from, if you don't want bounces that will hurt. That's not bad luck, it's bad decision making or poor course management and execution I'm afraid.

 

Go enjoy! :taunt:

[Matt J]

If I could male any positive comment, it would be that many golfers come over here, see and feel the heavy wind (and I can assure you that a 25 mph wind on a Scottish Links is absolutely nothing like a 25 mph wind in mid state US), and they fight and play against it. Learn how to play with it, and use it to your advantage and you can still score well. This is the reason why so many Pros we see this week at Troon struggling. Many have absolutely no idea of how to use it to their advantage because of a lack of experience and negative thoughts, togehter with trying to physically fight it. This type of wind which is only at around 15-20mph can easily be used to your advantage, and a Golfer who knows how to use it can easily shoot 68-69. That score gets you way up the leaderboard up against the majority of the field who have no clue how to use this breeze in a positive way. This is the reason why all this arguing about whether the draw is fair or not at the Open Championship, is complete utter nonsense I'm afraid.

 

Sorry, that positive comment turned almost into a negative rant there for a moment! :cheesy:

 

You should start a course on how to play in these winds, before next years Open.

 

Could make a mint off these tour guys that are clueless on how to battle the winds..................

 

Obviously sarcastic, but have you ever noticed that some guys always work their way up the leaderboard in shite weather?

 

Sneds round at Torrey this season was the most impressive of the year IMO.

 

I don't think it's that they don't understand how to do it, but rather they're not comfortable hitting the shots. They pound a million balls hitting the same ball flight because it makes them a load of money on the PGA Tour. Of course that's the shot they want to hit, not a full blown low slice to hold up against the wind. You think it's an accident that one of the greatest shotmakers on tour is in the lead at 46 years old?

[Matt J]

I've spent most of my life guiding people around the outdoors, you're not playing golf in sustained wind over 50 or 60 mph.

 

Gusts over 60 mph will pull you off your feet. I think there's a little hyperbole or a metric conversion issue going on in this thread.

 

To each their own, but 25 mph or so with gusts is about my max for enjoying the round. Three clubs of wind. Great for match play, but you aren't posting a number. That's U.S. links golf though. Maybe the Scots are really that much tougher than we are.

 

I don't think we're tougher per se, just used to simply accepting that if we want to play the game, then we have to get out in weather that maybe some of you across the pond may baulk at. I don't think that makes us 'tougher' just more accepting of the conditions and recognizing that it all part of the game of here.

 

If I could give some advice for anyone coming across, then it would be try and play the shots with less spin, as spin will kill you on a Scottish Links. Swing the club more neutral, and don't get steep on the ball, that extra spin will really hurt. For that reason it may be easier to take 2 clubs more and simply swing softer, that will impart less spin, make sure your swing path is nice and neutral, and that will help.

 

Secondly, try to learn to use the slopes and humps and bumps to your advantage. The real skill is recognizing which humps and slopes will hurt and which ones will help. The same slope from one side of the fairway will help whilst from the other side it may hurt you, so learning how and when to use these slopes and humps will help if your recognition and choices are correct.

 

Go enjoy! :taunt:

 

Great advice.

 

I've spent the last year playing in all types of weather and the only conditions I stay home in at the moment are soft and raining. My home course is inland 40 or 50 miles and doesn't have the sand soil base to deal with copious quantities of water. The links courses out on the sea might be different, but I've only been over there in "good" weather.

 

I've realized the same thing about spin. Hitting a low spin, but well struck shot is a work of art.

 

Good thread. Always enjoy a little chat with our "mates across the pond." When living down in NZ I spent a lot of time with a crew of "blokes" from Newcastle.

[toophewbirdies]

Matt

 

Obviously my comment was meant tongue in cheek. I think there are plenty of guys that know how to play in these conditions, Phil and Rickie are amongst those.

 

But to state that a 68 or 69 can be easily shot is a bit simplistic, I think.......

[nitram]

My utmost respect for those who choose to endure these conditions. To me it's not just the wind, but the combination of wind, lower temps, precipitation, course conditions, and other misc. elements. I've played in it but can't say I revel in it for sure. Usually when faced with these conditions it's time for me to go duck hunting.