Private Lessons

Your Secret for Success in 2009!

I know there are some of you out there who are crazy enough to play golf in just about any weather that comes along. I used to be the same when I was much younger. There was a day when I would play in the rain, the fog, and I even played nine holes in the snow when I was in college.

That was a pretty awesome event. Two of us, when I was in Idaho for a year at Northwest Nazarene College–now University–went out to the local country club. We knew it was closed due to the winter snow, so we took the liberty to park the car and sneak right out to the first tee with our clubs and tee it up.

Because the course had been closed for several days, the snow was almost as smooth as a roll of fine carpet rolling through the fairways. It was so undisturbed that even the small animals had not left their tracks in the new snow. What a sight to see. As we looked out across the rolling white ground there was nothing but the trees with their bare branches and nine white flag sticks, each waving a nice red flag back to us. It was all too inviting for a couple of crazy college sophomores on a bright sunny winter afternoon.

We would hit our shots and watch very closely in order to mark the landing spot. Amazingly, when we arrived in the general vicinity we were able to spot where the ball had disappeared into the fresh new snow. We only lost a couple of golf balls in the afternoon.

Naturally, we could not putt, so we would simply find our ball on the green, pick it up, and head off to the next tee. That was a fun afternoon, to say the least. I will say I do not recommend any of trying it. With today’s laws, etc., one could get into a lot of trouble sneaking onto a private club.

Where in the world did all of that begin? I actually want to share a few things about playing golf in the rainy, muddy conditions.

When the fairways are wet and muddy we tend to jab our club heads into the ground and as the mud is flying viciously in every direction the golf ball is normally going nowhere at all. The muddy conditions tend to suck the club head right into the ground, and all too often it is just immediately BEFORE making contact with the golf ball.

i found a little secret years ago, and it seemed to quite often give me a little advantage over my fellow competitors. I would open the clubface just a bit in my hands and cut–or soft fade (that is a gentle slice for you beginners out there)–the golf ball around the golf course.

Here is the reason I would do that. When we open the clubface in our hands we are, in effect, turning the sole of the golf club into a water ski. Openning the face causes the blade, or the leading edge of the clubhead, to come up off the ground just a slight bit. At the same time the back of the sole of the club stays on the ground. This is what gives the club a slight bit of a water ski effect, and it will help to minimize the way the club wants to dig into the wet turf. I seems to want to slide, or glide, across the wet surface a bit more, and it is thus a bit more forgiving.

There are some side effects we must be willing to accept when we do this, though. First, the open clubface will tend to make the ball slice a bit, and we need to maker certain to adjust or aiming point in order to accomodate this curve to the right. If you open the club too much you will actually create a big slice, and that is not the desired effect here. We are merely trying to open the clubhead just enough to give us a little better chance of not sticking the club intot he ground before we hit the golf ball.

The second thing which will take place when we open the face of the club is that we will be adding extra loft to the shot. There are typically only four degrees difference between irons. Each degree we open the clubface will add one degree of loft. In order to do what we want to do in the wet soil conditions we will probably want to ope the clubface between four to six degrees. That is not very much, but it means we have just made it necessary to take an extra club or two longer for the shot.

You will need to take a basket of balls out to the range and practice this little adjustment for a few shot, but when you become accustomed to it you will really enjoy and appreciate the benefits of doing it.

There is another thing which we tend to do in wet weather the same as we do in colder weather. That is we stand too far from the ball at address. This tends to happen because we are now wearing all of this extra clothing we did not need for summer golf. As crazy as it sounds, we all tend to accomodate the extra clothing by backing away from the ball at address by just a wee bit. However, that wee little bit is enough for us to start hitting a lot of our shots either thin or on the toe of the club.

Make certain you watch for this in the winter season. If you will remember that the golf ball will not travel as far in the winter, then you will not be embarrassed to take a longer club for your shots to the green.

Don’t be discouraged in the winter weather. All of us have to take the extra club in order to make the shot. You are not losing distance because of your golf swing. It is actually the weather doing it to you.

I hope this helps you enjoy your golf a bit more in the wet and cold weather.

See you next time.