Here at GOLF, you’ll hear us talk about why loft can be your friend in many different ways, but one of the best examples — and least obvious — can be in bad weather.
When pros or anyone heads overseas to play some of the great links courses of the United Kingdom and Ireland, like this week’s Open Championship at Royal Portrush, they’re likely to experience some less-than-stellar weather at some point, specifically like what the pros saw at Portrush on Saturday afternoon.
On this week’s episode of GOLF’s Fully Equipped, Johnny Wunder explained how adding loft to your clubs, be it the driver, fairway woods, hybrids or irons, can actually be a great move when playing in rough conditions.
“The best way to combat bad weather, for any folks that play up in the Northwest and the Northeast and you play fall golf, one of the greatest ways to combat bad golf is adding loft to a lot of your clubs,” Wunder said. “The reason being is obviously the elements, you know, moisture on the face, this and that, but also swing speed. You’re not swinging it as fast.”
This is the 1 thing pros did to their wedges at The Open | Fully Equipped
While it might be thought that you want to keep the ball down in bad weather and out of the wind, adding loft is going to help you get the ball in the air more easily simply because you’re swinging slower. Whether that be because of a rain jacket or your body not moving as well in colder air, rough conditions will impact your swing speed.
“The basic idea there is just more forgiveness. It’s just easier to get the ball up in the air,” Wunder said. “It’s cold. The elements are against you. Some might say, well, what about spin and launch and all that stuff if you want to be able to keep the ball down? To be honest, in the elements, if you add loft after everything is said and done, a lot of it’s still apples to apples. It just makes it easier to hit the window that you’re used to hitting and it’s not really a concern about if it’s going to spin too much or this and that, because honestly, you’re adjusting for the weather, you’re adjusting for the elements.”
By adding loft, you’re allowing yourself to still get the ball in the air despite swinging slower.
Adding loft to a club also helps the grooves deflect more water and debris away from the golf ball, giving you more control.
Wunder said many Tour trucks were seeing players add loft to their driver for the Open Championship this week. You could also theoretically do this with irons, but bending irons back and forth depending on the weather may be a little tedious, but you could do it depending on the time of year, knowing you will swing slower in the fall or spring.
And for good players, even with extra loft, they’ll still find a way to keep their golf ball out of the wind.
“Trust me, they know how to take loft off a club,” Wunder said. “They know how to lean shafts. They know how to hit it down. That’s not really the issue.”
For more from Wunder, including a preview of his new brand-agnostic WITB, listen to the full episode of Fully Equipped here, or watch it below.
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