INSTRUCTION

WHEN IT'S BREEZY, SWING SLOW AND EASY

By Bob Miller and Jeff Blanchard
Photography by George Peet

Steps 1 - 7, to play in Windy Conditions
Steps 1 - 3, Hitting the Ball Higher

It is hard to know just when Bob Miller's name became synonymous with "golf instructor", but it is easy to see why.

By the time we to him at 4:30 one recent afternoon, for a primer on how to play in thewind, he had given lessons to 40 people, including a group of 18 women. He had 45 minutes to spare, though, before his next lesson, and he spent all 45 of them sharing his expertise on playing the game.

At one point early on in the lesson-for-shoot, photographer George Peet asked Miller what he thinks about when he sizes up a certain tricky shot. Miller stopped what he was doing, walked over to Peet and asked, " How long have you been playing this game? Don't think. Be like Bubba. Just do it, don't think about it. You can't be out here thinking all the time, man. It doesn't work that way."

For all the technical tips he imparted, this could well have been the most valuable pearl he cast to us all day.

As to Miller's credentials as a player, look no farther than his recent performance in the Massachusetts Open, where he posted a three-round score of 215 - good for a top 25 finish, eight strokes from victory at the age of 47. Sandwiching a 67 between rounds of 75 and 73, Miller went out in 29 at Mount Pleasant Country Club in Boyleston, which was the lowest nine-hole count in Mass. Open history.

Of all the shots to master on Cape Cod, with its ocean exposure on three sides, hitting good shots in the wind must surely land at the top of anyone's list.

"Here in New England, people may say that they've been playing golf for 10 years, but they've really only been playing for five, because it's a short, intense season, " Miller said. "Weather is a huge factor, obviously, but the biggest factor in terms of influencing the golf ball is wind. And that's true all over the world, not just here."

"What Great players have the ability to do, " he continued, "is to control the distance and the trajectory of the ball. A person who hits high has trouble controlling the distance for a number of reasons, but mostly because the high shot is subjected to more wind, crosswinds, winds from behind or in your face."

In a crosswind, use the same swing and simply adjust your stance to compensate for the wind direction. "It really is a great shot to have in your bag," Miller said. "It's not only valuable for hitting into the wind, but also for those times when you want to pick a lower club. Call it a knockdown shot, a punch shot, whatever you want. It's basically controlling the trajectory more than anything else." Miller made the point that "airplanes don't take off downwind" because of the potential for the wind to force the plane down. Likewise with a golf ball. A following breeze is not neccessarily an aid to distance, but it can be with the right (low) trajectory.

It doesn't matter whether the wind is with you or against you here. The point is to keep the ball low so the wind doesn't have a chance to alter the trajectory or the distance of the shot. "I've hit plenty of knock-down shots with the wind, " Miller said. The keys are "swinging with good tempo and making sure the club is moving down the line."

To help you play well in windy conditions, Miller offered a few simple instructions:

For this lesson Miller was using a 7-iron because he wanted to land the ball about 135 yards away, but the lesson could be applied to any club, it just depends on how far you want the little white orb to travel. Miller himself ordinarily hits his 7-iron more like 165 yards, but the idea here was to keep the ball down and out of the wind, which translated into a 30-yard sacrifice.