Open Championship season is full of unusual challenges for players making their way abroad—and one annoying swing flaw.
That’s because every year, the British Open has a nasty habit of breaking players’ golf swings.
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And there are two reasons why: More wind, and firmer ground.
The combination is a recipe for bad habits to creep into players’ golf swings, and with many coaches opting out of the two-week Scottish Open-Open Championship trip, the journey becomes a race to fix various problems before they stick.
Here are some of the issues that often arise—and how pros work around them.
Ball position drifts back
The most common bad habit that creeps in is ball position drifting back in players’ stance. It’s the product of trying to flight the ball low, and ensure they hit the ball first on hardpan lies.
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Most times it’s something they do subconsciously—ask any player about it and they’ll share a story of coming back stateside confused about why their irons are flying lower than usual, and their driver is spinning too much. It’s because their further-back ball position means they’re hitting down on the ball more than usual.
It happens to the best of us, even Scottie Scheffler:
“If we’re playing a bunch of windy weeks in a row and all of a sudden I get back home my ball position will just move back because I’ve been flighting it down for so long…I’m always trying to make sure I get those fundamentals down to try to keep my neutral, neutral.”
Weight stacks too far forward
A related problem caused by the same thing is players moving too much weight onto their front foot at setup. It’s the basic knockdown formula. You keep the ball down by moving your weight forward and putting the ball position back. The windier it gets, the more it happens without you trying.
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Tracy Wilcox
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Swinging against the wind
An interesting phenomenon is that players tend to subconsciously fight the wind with their golf swings. So, if the wind is blowing from right-to-left, and a player prefers to hit left-to-right fades by swinging left, the wind subconsciously encourages them to swing more to the left, and hit bigger fades. The issue is these shots are masked by the opposing wind—they’re seeing straight shots—but then the moment the wind dies they’re staring at slices.
As Sepp Straka explains:
“I think that’s part of why the Postage Stamp is such a great hole. Today you got seven holes in a row of where the wind was straight off the right. You just grooved into that, your swing kind of adapts to that, and all of a sudden you’re standing on the 8th tee, you’re elevated, and this wind is all of a sudden into and off the left. It’s very challenging. It makes switching really hard, because all day you’ve been starting it so far right, and then to see that ball starting left is really tough to do.”
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The most common place you see this arise is on the driving range. Players hit from one spot and practice with the wind moving solidly in one direction. It’s a physical and mental challenge to see your stock fades turn into hooks on the range because of the wind, but it’s one every Open Champion has to overcome.
Riding the wind too hard
Good news! The wind is behind you. The drive you’re about to hit is going to go a long way.
Bad news! The wind is behind you. That can mess up your golf swing.
A study at the most recent World Scientific Congress of Golf found that when golfers are in situations where they need to hit the ball higher than usual, they open a bigger sway gap in their golf swing. In other words, there’s a bigger gap between their hips and upper body during their swing.
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While that move can unlock some extra distance, it’s also a divergence from the norm of your golf swing. When it’s not timed up, it can cause extreme shot shapes, double-crosses, and off-center hits.
Read the full article here
