Course management
Golf in the rain: play for carry and keep the ball low near the green
Wet turf kills roll, a wet ball flies shorter and more crooked off the driver, and soft lies punish lofted chips. Three rules and a checklist to stop a wet day wrecking your score.
In a Golf Digest robot test, a driver swung at 95mph sent a dry ball 242.5 yards on a straight shot and a wet one 227.1 yards. On fades, the wet ball finished an average of 23.3 yards off line against 8.1 for the dry ball. That is what rain costs you before the ball lands; on a soaked fairway it then barely rolls.
If your summer drives regularly finish 20 or 30 yards past where they land, a wet course takes a large chunk of your length away.
Why a wet course plays longer
The USGA’s course-care team notes that on wet fairways, drives that would normally roll stop close to where they land, and that hurts slower swingers most. Cold air makes it worse. In a year of TrackMan testing, Andrew Rice, a GOLF Top 100 Teacher, found that a drive with 155mph ball speed loses about 2.5 yards of carry for every 10°F (about 5.5°C) drop in air temperature.
Put the two together and a 380-yard par 4 that you reach with a drive and a 6-iron in August can need a drive and a hybrid, or three shots, in November.
Rule one: plan every shot on carry
Base every decision on how far the ball flies:
- Off the tee: check the carry needed to clear bunkers, ditches and rough, and stop counting on roll to get you past trouble or up to the corner of a dogleg.
- Long par 4s: if the green is out of reach in two, treat the hole as a par 5 and play to a lay-up yardage you like. Our personal par approach is built for this.
- Approaches: pick the club that carries the ball to the middle of the green. Soft greens tend to hold, but spin is harder to predict when the ball and face are wet. MyGolfSpy’s wet wedge test found that the average wedge lost about 35% of its dry spin, and launch angles usually rose.
The wet ball also flies less predictably with longer clubs. In the same Golf Digest test, a 5-iron hit straight finished an average of 7.6 yards off line wet, against under 2 yards dry. More spread calls for bigger targets: the middle of the green or the fat side of the flag.
Rule two: keep water off the clubface and grips
Hang a dry towel under your umbrella, wipe the face and grooves before every full swing, and keep your glove and grips covered between shots.
Rule three: near the green, keep the ball on the ground
The USGA notes that on wet ground the club tends to dig, producing heavy shots, and golfers who then try to avoid hitting it fat often thin the next one across the green. Around the green:
- Putt from off the green whenever the grass in between is short and smooth enough.
- Bump it with less loft. A 7-iron or hybrid running shot needs only a small, putting-style stroke and is far less likely to dig than a lob wedge.
- Allow for slower greens. Wet greens usually run more slowly, so be firm with long first putts.
Know your free relief
The Rules of Golf give you several kinds of free relief on a wet day:
- Temporary water (Rule 16.1): if your ball lies in standing water, or the water interferes with your stance or swing, you get free relief. In the general area, find the nearest point of complete relief and drop within one club-length of it, no nearer the hole. In a bunker you can take free relief in the bunker, or, for one penalty stroke, drop outside it on a line from the hole through the spot where your ball lay. On the green, place the ball at the nearest point of complete relief, which can be off the green.
- Embedded ball (Rule 16.3): if your ball is in its own pitch-mark in the general area and partly below ground level, you may drop within one club-length of the spot directly behind it, no nearer the hole.
- Preferred lies (Model Local Rule E-3): only if your golf club has brought it into effect. It sets the relief area, such as six inches, a scorecard length or a club-length, and you may prefer your lie only once. Check the noticeboard before you tee off.
How much you lose depends on your game
Players who hit the ball high and land it steeply may lose less roll than those with a low, running flight. Wedge design matters too: in MyGolfSpy’s test, some wedges kept most of their spin when wet while others lost much of it.
Resetting par for breaking 100, 90 and single figures
- Breaking 100: treat every long par 4 as a par 5 and take the putter whenever you can from off the green.
- Breaking 90: reset your lay-up yardages. A full wedge from a comfortable number is worth more than a long iron from a wet lie.
- Single figures: expect par to be a good score on the longest holes and look for chances on the short par 4s and the par 5s you can still reach. Plan for less spin than usual on approaches.
Measure your wet-day roll
On your next wet round, pace the distance between where three drives landed and where they finished. The average gap is your wet-day roll, and on a soft course it may be close to nothing. Write that number on your scorecard and plan every remaining hole from carry alone.
Sources
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