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The direction your facing on the golf course

TCB2010

TCB2010

How good do the HMB’s look?!
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If you stop and think for a second, go over the holes on your home course or course played most often. Think about the holes and which direction their facing. The holes that give you the most trouble are those holes all facing a certain direction or two?
This sounds crazy I know, but I’ve found that I struggle with holes facing south. For some reason especially off the tee, I lose them right, I don’t mean a big old slice, I just mean a push right.
Do directions both you?
 
Uhhhhh.....i am not sure I even know which way the holes face when I play. I just see ball and target zone.:unsure:
 
On my home course, it depends on which way the wind is blowing. Our prevailing winds are mostly either North or South, and we have a lot of holes that are pretty much dead on in those directions. So some days the South-facing holes are horrible, while other days it's the North-facing holes.
 
TCB2010 said:
If you stop and think for a second, go over the holes on your home course or course played most often. Think about the holes and which direction their facing. The holes that give you the most trouble are those holes all facing a certain direction or two?
This sounds crazy I know, but I’ve found that I struggle with holes facing south. For some reason especially off the tee, I lose them right, I don’t mean a big old slice, I just mean a push right.
Do directions both you?
Click to expand...

I wonder if you would have the same issue if you were unaware of your cardinal orientation on the tee? Kind of like asking your opponent if they breathe in or out on their backswing, sometimes it's just better to be less observant. It's pretty easy to get inside your own head on a golf course.
 
Like @Snowman said, the only 'direction' that tends to bother me is into the wind. I don't care about it as much off the tee (except yesterday when the wind was literally moving the head of my driver during my backswing), but on approach it's tough. So it stands out on the par 3s. At my home course and the two other locals I play, 75% of the par 3s are right into the prevailing winds. All the ones over 200yds are annoyingly into the wind. So if you were going to draw on a map which directions bother me it'd be colored in from SW to NW usually.
 
We get mostly NW winds and those are our longest holes for some reason. Those are the ones that are my hardest holes.
 
Well, now that you mention it...

The 4 toughest holes for me all face west.
 
Yes, the two courses I play most have a series of holes facing west. I typically play late afternoon, hitting into the sun on these holes can be brutal. We look at making the turn not at the tenth hole but when we turn our back to the sun, the ninth on one course and twelfth hole on the other.
 
On my home course there’s a stretch of three straight holes that are due East that prove to be the toughest challenge. I think the tight OB on the right side of each is more of a factor than the actual direction Of the hole.
 
Doesn't matter so much on direction for me, any which way gives me trouble. The only thing which matters in direction for me that hinder or help is those that happen to be facing with or against the wind. I'm not the greatest wind player.
 
Directions don't seem to bother me at all. I may play the hole good one time and bad the next. I have to admit the problem is always me o_O
 
Nope, any direction I can push pull or even miraculously hit it straight
 
I don't really think there's a rhyme or reason for hole difficulty for my game.
 
Not really and never really thought about it. If I am playing well I hit quality shots and if not I don’t. Direction doesn’t matter.
 
Definitely west for me. I usually play in the late afternoon, so it's into the setting sun. Plus the wind around here is usually blowing from the west. And by pure luck, some of the harder holes where I usually play go towards the west as well.
 
Other than prevailing winds, the direction of a hole isn't a factor for me. What I do find though, is that I'll repeat a bad miss on a particular hole (sometimes over and over...). I notice that my friends will do the same thing.

For example, on one dogleg left par-4 at our course, I'll over-hook my ball at least half the time. And he usually blocks it way right on that hole (you could land a plane between his ball and mine most days on that hole).
 
I’d say not directionally challenged. I have one particular hole that gives me trouble but it’s a Par 5 and I think I try and over hit the ball more then anything else.
 
Interesting, not sure I'll find any correlation but I'm going to take a look when I gert to PC later, (SAH is getting that tedious). HBH spreadsheets of the two courses I play most often are on a PC that is currently in use for a ZOOM Pilates class.
 
For my home course it also depends a little on the wind. If the wind is blowing from the south, 2 of the hardest holes are going south, and hitting into that wind makes them even more difficult. But thinking about the rest of the course, there's no rhyme or reason for a certain direction giving me trouble.
 
My home course is all about the wind direction. For the most part the wind comes out of the mountains to the south, across Liberty Lake and then across the course going north. That prevailing wind blows right into the tee shot of the signature hole of the course, 607 yard par 5. Only 3 other holes are either upwind or down wind. The rest are all side wind. Occasionally the wind will switch directions 180* and blow straight south, but that is a rare occasion.
 
The westerly facing 10th and 11th hole are rather difficult. Not because of the direction in which they face, but they are into the prevailing wind, and both play very long. 10 is a 450 par 4 with a dog leg right, and 11 is a 200 yard par 3 with a big oak tree along the right side that can wreak havoc on your round.
 
Based off 'score to par' for the two courses I play most, compass direction looks to provide zero correlation. Hole handicap and distance make a big difference though.

I'm averaging par + 0.67 or worse on my worst 7 of 36 holes. Three of them play down wind, three play into a head wind usually. Both the #1s and both the #2 HC holes, along with one of the #3s are in that set of 7. My worst two usually play dead down wind. Both are long par 4s (435 and 441) and are also both the #1 HC holes. They own me to the tune of 5.04 and 4.81 average strokes.

I'm averaging par + less than 0.25 on my 5 best of 36 holes. Three play into a head wind and only one plays down wind. A #18 HC and both #16 HC holes are in that set of 5. The two easiest for me are a shortish (484 yd HC#10) par 5 dead into the wind that I average 5.06 on, plus a real short (295 yd HC#16) down wind par 4 that I average 4.11 on.
 
The two hardest holes for me on my course both face opposite directions. So I don’t think there is much correlation for me. Wind is more of an issue than direction the hole is facing. Only one hole goes IN to the prominent wind direction so it’s more cross winds that I have to deal with
 
To be honest I have never given 1 seconds thought to which direction I was facing. The only one that matters is the direction towards the hole.
 
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