Golf at Zero Degrees

24 Jan

This week has seen us here in the UK playing proper Winter golf, with the cold snap meaning ice-hard ground everywhere - even where I’m based in the South East. This got me asking the question - is it worth playing golf in the winter?

Welcome to 54 to Scratch, the blog about my journey as a golfer navigating my way from beginner to experienced.

Having played for a couple of years now, this wasn’t the first winter that I’ve been playing. However, last year I think I missed a couple of weeks when we had seriously cold weather here as I don’t remember having played in such icy conditions.

Having managed to get a couple of rounds in this week, including some practice lunchtime holes due to travel arrangements with work changing, it was crazy just how much the ball was bouncing on the solid ground, with those bounces being completely determined by the angle the bit of ground the ball was hitting was sitting at.

The greens were solid too, which meant that approach play and chips were extremely difficult to predict. Approaches especially are difficult, as you have the choice between landing short and praying you get a good bounce or accepting you will be long and chipping from there. I guess the decision there comes down to the pin.

Putting is an interesting one too, as it’s the complete opposite of chips! Where a chip hits the ice and skims, going further on the bounces than it would before slowing, a putt seems to have a lot more friction, with the ice actually seemingly causing more drag.

Obviously, this just means hitting the ball a bit harder, but it does take a little bit of getting used to.

What this obviously means is that scoring can be a little bit of a lottery. I mean, I had one perfectly straight shot hit something on the frozen ground and bounce 90 degrees left - even in the summer I don’t think that happens quite to the same extreme.

This means that there is an argument from some that you shouldn’t put scores into the WHS system when conditions are like this, although according to the WHS website it does say that the system allows for weather conditions when calculating which would dispel this.

As a result of all of the above, I come back to that question about whether it’s worth playing at all.

Speaking to some members of my local club, the topic definitely splits opinion.

“It’s not golf” is a common comment from the side of the fence who don’t tend to play. “It’s too cold” is another. Some of these will either focus on range practice or not touch a golf club for a few months until the spring.

There is obviously no right answer to this. It really does come down to the individual. Some people don’t like the cold, or the wet. For some, they won’t like the unpredictability that playing in this weather gives them.

However, the comment “It’s not golf” is something I would strongly dispute.

One could argue that there is nothing MORE golf than seeing a perfectly hit shot hit the ground and go 90 degrees to the left.

One of the most amazing things about Golf as a sport is the unpredictability. Even the best players on the best courses have some weird and wonderful things happen to them during the course of 18 holes.

Everyone has hit a poor shot that due to a stroke of luck has turned into something special. Equally, due to that same stroke of luck, a great shot can turn into something REALLY bad due to divot, twig or the wind.

Event the expression “stroke of luck” feels like it was penned by someone straight off the golf course.

So for me, Winter golf seems like ideal practice.

Yes. I spend time on the range. I go at least twice a week to focus on whatever I’m going through in lessons or anything that has been coming up on the course. The range is definitely the best place to tweak things.

However, there really is nothing like getting on the course to practice. Unless you are lucky enough to have a perfect grass range, going off of a mat is not the same. Fat shots are not punished in quite the same way, so you have less of a visual to show that you’ve hit a bad shot.

Equally, there is only so much decision making you can practice on the range and the mental side is very difficult to replicate.

During the season proper, those strokes of luck can have a big impact on your mental game. It can be quite difficult to shake off the disappointment of seeing a well hit shot get that unlucky bounce. The best players are the ones that are able to focus just on the next shot.

So I think fair-weather golfers are really missing out on some incredibly special practice time!

Yes, the scores are not going to be as good when the weather is cold or wet (or both in the UK).

But what you do get is a very unique brand of golf. A brand of golf that throws all of the challenges that you get in the summer but to the extreme. And without the pressure.

Because during the winter, you aren’t EXPECTING good results. So it helps you to deal with the bad bounces. The amount of times I was laughing at the bad bounces this week rather than lamenting them has been astounding to me.

There was one hole at the weekend where I hit a near perfect 3 wood to within distance for my 9 iron. I then hit my 9 iron on a perfect line to the hole. In the summer, I reckon it would have bounced and rolled right up to the hole.

When the ball was flying through the air, I was happy. It looked lovely. There really is nothing like seeing a well hit shot. When you don’t hit many of them, it makes it all the more sweeter. I feel sorry for those players who have lost the feeling of a well hit shot because they are so talented… Lol.

But hitting a lovely green versus a block of ice is obviously a bit different. Instead of rolling nicely up to the hole, the ball must have bounced about 30 foot in the air! The sound was crazy too, a kind of hollow clonk that resonated against the trees lining the left side of the hole.

Thankfully, after a couple of bounces, the ball ended up in the rough behind the green which stopped the ball, but this obviously left me with a different shot to what I would have had under different circumstances.

My reaction though was something I’ll try and implement more. I laughed. I was laughing all the way to my next shot. Then I focused on what I needed to do on that.

And that’s priceless practice for me. Practice of the mental game. Learning to relax and just “enjoy the walk”.

So, for anyone reading this - wrap up warm, dress up in something resembling a Mr Blobby costume if you need to, get out there and enjoy the walk! Enjoy the weird bounces, having to hit a ball lying on hard ground, the strange deviations that frozen grass makes on the green.

Because all of that WILL happen at some point during the summer in slightly different ways, but at least you will be prepared for it.

As always, thank you for taking the time to read my ramblings - have a great round everyone - play well!