Brutal Wind

Ran league tonight and it started out windy and got super windy. As soon as we got out on the course the wind started blowing full on, maybe at 50 to 60 mph. And it just would not let up. The group that I was playing with (the other twosome in our foursome) double bogeyed the second hole. Every shot was difficult at best. My partner and I got as far as three down before coming back to two down. In the end the other twosome in our foursome came back to tie us and a third pair at -2. We lost in a playoff to the same pair that double bogeyed that second hole (which by the way was a short hole). They sunk a forty footer to win.

 

Things I learned about the brutal wind...

 

1) Play conservative and play for position.

2) Don't give up. It sucks for everyone.

3) Play to a position.

4) Keep the disc low or else it could sail.

 

Definitely a war of attrition and I am glad to be home. I feel like I was sandblasted.

[Hippy]

YEp!!! Windy here in fla too!!!! Makes it tough!!!!

[Jim Coonradt]

Tough was an understatement. I was exhausted after the round.

[Rev. Bob Klingler]

My home course is right on the shore of Lake Erie. The name of the club is "Shoot the Breeze" - more often it should be, "Survive the Wind"!

[Herb E]

how overstable can they make discs? i'd like to see some mid-range and approach discs that are even more overstable than a drone or pig. is the demon the most overstable mid-range?

[Greg D'OHogne]

I would say yes, the Gateway Demon has very large cojones!

 

Also, there aren't many drivers out there that can hang with a Gateway Spirit.  You couldn't turn one of those over into a 50 mph headwind!

[Mark Cuban]

These are the kind of days that I putt with a firebird !

[JC]

Two things to add to playing in the wind:

1. Throw the disc as flat as possible as often as possible, especially when putting.  Any angle on the disc exposes more of the disc to the wind.

 

2. Know what the wind will do to the disc. If you know how the wind will affect the disc, you can pick a disc best suited to counter-act it.  The big fallacy is that in heavy wind, you should only throw over-stable discs.  Not true.  Over-stable is the choice in headwinds for sure (because headwind will cause the disc to turn over more), but a poor one in tailwinds. A tail wind will cause the disc to fly more over-stable than normal, so throwing something more under-stable than you would in calm conditions will give you a straighter shot in the end.

[Eric Day]

From playing the in Gulf of Mexico at my home course, I look forward to the wind. Once you can figure out what disc does what in strong winds you can really own a course. You just have to find the different routes to the basket. Try throwing a hyzer flip, with a somewhat stable disc into a headwind. You can get some crazy D. Just like throwing something really flippy in the strong tail wind, give it some extra air and you can bomb a huge S shot.

[Jim Coonradt]

I'm not really sure what the wind speed was yesterday but it could have easily been greater than 50 mph. And it was constant. There really were no lulls. So if you think that you really know how to play in the wind, take that knowledge and throw it out and replace it with the disc getting affected ten times what normal wind does to the disc. Definitely was still throwing overstable into a headwind and understable with a tailwind. And the advice about keeping it flat makes a lot of sense because if you present any surface to the wind it will affect the disc greatly. But even when I knew the right thing to do it was at best difficult to execute the shot. On our playoff hole I knew that I needed to throw an anhyzer at the hole but it cruised on me and ended up fifty to eighty feet away from the basket. Keep it low and play for position. Also lots of layup shots for par. The interesting thing was that even though the night before Doubles was won with a 13 down, on Thursday night three teams came in at 2 down for a playoff. So the wind basically knocked ten strokes off of the winning score.