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As most of us have already found out, it is much harder playing those wind rounds in GBC than we were used to in JN5. To the point that many have just given up after one or two tentative attempts, have simply declared them unplayable, and never use the wind setting higher than medium. That blocks out half of the available options, there being only four wind selections instead of five as offered by JN5.
For the first few days after getting my copy of GBC I was doing the same, which is quite understandable - one has to learn the basics and that’s hard enough without having to put up with the strong or gusty wind. However, sooner or later one has to face it, as will all of you who have thus far been putting it into the “too hard” basket.
On about the fifth day of playing GBC I took a deep breath, warmed up my hands and walked to the first tee at Montecastillo in gusty winds. With its wide open spaces it seemed the best choice for such a venture. About 45 minutes later I was back in the clubhouse, with the worst score I had shot since I had first put my hands on JNSE several years ago. A whopping 86!
At first I felt thoroughly humiliated, but soon I realised that here lies a challenge for those of us who are willing to face it, the challenge that I was secretly hoping that GBC would bring us, when JN5 rounds in the low sixties and sometimes in the fifties became more or less a matter of routine. From here on I was on a mission. I was going to tame those wild winds and when I could shoot around par consistently, I would write a tutorial about the wind play in GBC.
After about two dozen wind rounds I can now score fairly consistently in the low to mid 70’s (bare a total disaster that’s always possible under the extreme conditions), and have even broken into the 60’s on a few occasions. So, how do I do it?
First of all, a word about the settings I am using and what has lead up to it. After the initial experiments I have created two golfers and played five rounds on the stock courses in calm conditions, with the fast meter, to give them a handicap. Both have ended up with the handicap of -9. I have tried the very fast meter for a few rounds after that, but had soon discarded that. I felt that the extra power I was getting did not give me any great advantage, and I was struggling to get the timing right. From what I have seen on the TCD forum, most people have had a similar experience. So my current setting is as follows:
Meter: Fast Driving: 20 Approach: 20 Around greens: 18 Bunker: 2 Putting: 20
I might vary it slightly, but basically this is how I play most of the time. I use the driver with 9 degree loft, 3 wood, usually 1,2,3,4,5,7,8,9 irons (this depends on the course I play, sometimes I would include the 6 iron and drop one of the other irons), wedge, sand wedge and loft wedge. I have also practiced the bunker play a lot to make up for the obvious deficiency in that department.
GBC is much more realistic than JN5 ever was in how the wind affects the shots. In real golf for instance, when playing on a links course into a stiff wind, the player might often be forced to use the driver on a par three hole that would normally require 5 or 6 iron. And this is what happens with GBC too. So if you face a shot directly into the 25 - 30 mph wind, and you have to carry the ball over water some 180 - 200 yds, do not hesitate one moment and pull out the driver. It will be hard stopping the ball on the green and you will probably have to rely on your chipping skills, but at least you have avoided an almost certain penalty stroke and lost distance.
On a level ground, roughly you have to add one club for each 5 mph when you’re playing directly into the wind. Also, bear in mind that if your timing is only slightly off, this will cause the shot slice or hook quite viscously. On water holes especially you therefore have to guard against either a slice or a hook, so that if you miss it would be on the safe side.
When you play straight down the wind however, don’t try to use the same formula in a reverse, because almost certainly you would end up short. You need to approximately halve it, subtract one club for 10 mph wind behind your back. As in real golf, the ball flies much lower and consequently it hits the ground sooner. It will nevertheless roll farther, so make some allowance for that.
Most of the time you will have to play your shots into some sort of a cross-wind. This is where you have to make some far reaching decisions about your strategy on any given hole. There are two basic ways to play the cross wind, you either fight it or use it. I will try to illustrate it on an example. Let’s say that you are on the tee of a par four hole 400 yds long that dog-legs slightly to the left, with the wind coming from your right at 25 mph. There is trouble (water, trees?) on the right side, the left side is relatively trouble free, you can afford to miss the shot there. In this case I would try using the wind. I would set the arrow to the point where I want the shot to land, then I would hit the right arrow on keyboard about 12 times, while constantly watching the wind indicator on your screen. In the gusty winds it tends to fluctuate quite a lot, at least initially. Be prepared to react to any changes. It usually settles down to a certain direction and strength after a while, that’s when you want to hit your shot. Just before you do, take one last glance on the wind gauge, if it hasn’t moved significantly, which might sometimes happen. And a word of warning: always check the ball’s lie. If it happens to be on a side slope, this will also affect the shot. I’m not quite sure how, but I suspect that it might be as much as an equivalent of up to five clicks either way.
Twelve or so clicks on the keyboard arrow will take the shot arrow a way out, pointing into the rough or even outside the hole overhead. Don’t let that worry you, the ball is going to fly in a wide arch and should land somewhere near the spot you have picked, provided that your timing is right. If it happens to be out then I can’t help you, of course. With this type of a shot you will probably gain some extra distance on your drive. You will probably want to hit the fairway somewhat right of the centre, to allow for the roll of the ball and keep it on the fairway. You might risk the power drive, in which case you could gain a lot more distance, especially if the wind happens to be slightly behind you. One of my power drives on a left dog-leg with the 30 mph wind coming from about 4 o’clock had travelled nearly 400 yds! Even without power driving, your drive might be well over 300 yds long.
Now, let’s take another hole, a slight left dog-leg again, but this time there is trouble on both sides. You can’t risk the type of shot I have just described, your ball would almost certainly end up in the woods. You will have to use the other method and slice the ball into the wind. First of all, you’ll have to realise that you are going to have to sacrifice quite a lot of distance. Your 300 yds drive will shrink to about 240 yds or even less. How would you go about slicing the ball into the wind? Holding down the Ctrl you click on the left arrow. Each click counts for about 2 1/2 mph of wind. You’ll end up with the orange shot arrow (BTW, this is a horrible colour, almost invisible against the background and useless for the purpose, my priority number one in the upcoming patch) bent way out to the left. Let its end point to the spot you have chosen for landing the ball, bearing in mind the loss of distance. The whole thing looks quite alarming, but don’t let that get to you. If you time the shot right, the ball should go more or less straight. You can do the same with your approach shot, but be prepared to add at least a couple of clubs to the selection, because of the lost distance. If you need to hook the ball into the wind, just reverse the action.
All this takes quite a bit of practice, but it’s worth it, as your overall game is also going to improve. No matter how good you might become, you will never be able to hit anywhere near as many greens as you would in mild or medium winds. Under the extreme conditions often the only way of keeping your approach shot on the green is by hitting the pin. You will have to play a lot of chips and short pitch shots around the green and if you can’t get up and down most of the time, you will never score well. Thankfully, in GBC the short game is not affected as badly by the high wind as your drives and your approaches. And putting seems to be completely unaffected. This is important to remember: once the ball gets to roll on the green, it seems to behave as a normal put would, so all the calculations are only valid while it is airborne.
If you are close to the green. let’s say to within 60’ or so from the pin and you use the club selection and setting the game gives you, you will have to make some allowance, particularly for the cross wind. For some reason in these situations the shot arrow moves in much larger segments, so you will probably have to make adjustments by grabbing the arrow with your mouse and moving it to the spot where you want the ball to land. The same goes for bunker shots around the greens, even in cross wind your bigger problem is correctly judging the distance rather than the direction. I have hit some bunker shots straight into the wind, with the ball landing several feet short of the hole and it still rolled way beyond the flag, as I apparently allowed too much for the wind. The general rule is: play your normal short game and only make some allowance for the wind.
Not so when you face a pitch or high lob to the green. For instance, when hitting the lob or sand wedge from about 50 yds, you have to allow almost as much as you would for your longer approach. Up to a dozen clicks on the keyboard arrow, particularly if you if you use the high trajectory.
Speaking about the trajectory, you have probably discovered already that this can be adjusted in the edit golfer section. I normally set my golfer to play on the highest trajectory, but when playing in the wind I tend to make a lot of changes during the game by holding Ctrl and up or down arrow on the keyboard. For instance: when I have to hit my drive into a 25 mph wind I lower the trajectory as much as possible. By doing this I will gain about 10-15 yds of distance, which is important particularly on long par fours, where it may be the difference between hitting three wood or two iron to the green.
I did some experimenting with hitting the ball in gusty winds on a makeshift
driving range, here are some results:
With normal conditions on the flat fairway and 25-30 mph wind behind,
the power hit drive on a high trajectory might nudge the 400 yds barrier.
With the normal hit it will go about 350 - 360 yds. Power hit 1 iron will
go about 325 yds, normally about 290. 5 iron hit normally might go about
210 yds, 7 iron about 180, pitching wedge 135.
It’s a different story when you are hitting into the wind. I was not
able to hit my driver beyond 245 yds even with the perfectly timed power
drive on the lower trajectory when the wind blew at 29 mph into my face.
When hit normally it went about 235 yds, with the high trajectory even
less, about 220. Low hit 3 wood did not go beyond 200 yds, 1 iron about
180. Power hit 5 iron reached 170 yds, normally 140. Pitching wedge reached
95 yds on a low trajectory, 90 yds when hit high.
So far I have been dealing only with the gusty winds. This is because they are far more difficult to handle than the strong winds. Once you have mastered play in gusty winds you should be able to breeze through a round played in strong winds. The formula that works with the gusty winds doesn’t quite apply here. A cross wind of 30 mph would require about 14 clicks on the keyboard, but if you clicked 7 times while playing a 15-16 mph strong wind the ball would not fade or hook far enough. The correct allowance in such case would be about 4-5 clicks. In fact, you rarely need to click more than 6x in strong winds. This makes everything much easier. The ball is more likely to hold on the green, driving or playing your approaches into the wind isn’t such a traumatic experience, as you only need to add a couple of clubs to the selection.
Don’t fear those high winds. I know that we all want to score low and the easiest way to do it is by leaving the setting on mild all the time. But if you want to become a better cyber golfer, you’ll have to face this challenge sooner or later. My advice is: make it sooner. When the tournament organisers decide to crank the winds up, you won’t be caught off guard!
Finally, here is one good news. After playing all those wind rounds, my golfers’ handicap has not suffered at all. In fact, one of them has improved to -10. Obviously, in calculations the game takes account of the playing conditions.