Fade and Draw

We'll see that the fade and draw shots become very useful in the wind when we want to lessen the amount of drift in a crosswind for example, but sometimes it is useful to play a shot like this under calm conditions, either because you need to get round a tree or obstacle or if the green is shaped such that a curveball approach is more likely to get close to the flag. You must be absolutely aware that a fade/draw shot is very sensitive to the lie, so if your lie arrow indicates a side slope then you have to be careful when hitting a shot with the slope (ie a draw if slope of lie is to the left) as the lie can increase the effect of the curve dramatically ( can be useful sometimes ), obviously a slope in opposite direction to your curve will lessen the effect. A draw shapes from right to left, and the fade goes left to right. Sadly, Access didnt build in a distance difference, so a fade/draw in calm conditions will go same distance as a straight shot, unlike real golf where a draw tends to lengthen the distance and a fade shortens it ( pros use this to gain length with drives by drawing, and to stop shots quickly on the green by fading or "cutting" it as the commentators often refer to it). It's an advanced type of shot and you can do without it, but it can be quite handy, so I've included it for reference, but as I say, it will become more useful when we discuss the wind section. So, here's a rough chart that shows the amount of side bend on a fade or draw shot, ie..with a flat lie and flat green, aim this much to the side of the pin to make the shot bend to the flag. By the way, I just remembered another good use of a fade or draw is with greens which slope strongly to one side, you can hit a fade/draw to oppose the slope and that will cause the shot to bump the slope and it wont be carried so far with the slope (ie for a strong left-to-right sloping green, hit a draw to bump the ball into the slope and hold it up against the slope). Note the jump in bend when we switch from a wood to an iron, this is because of the lower trajectory and swing plane of an iron causes more sidespin to be imparted.Also note how little the effect is with the wedges, again this is true to real life because of the loft of the club.

	Drift (feet)	Loss(yards)		Drift (feet)	Loss(yards)		Drift (feet)	Loss(yards)
1W	70	>7*	3i	45+	4	PW	5	2
2W	60	>7*	4i	40+	4	SW	4	~2*
3W	55	>7*	5i	35	4	LW	3	1-2
4W	40	7	6i	25	3
5W	30	5	7i	20	3
			8i	15	3		* = assumed
			9i	10	2

The drift column obviously shows the sideways movement you should allow for the shot.The loss column shows the approximate loss in yardage you can expect when playing a fade/draw type of shot. This will be more severe if you play in a crosswind, I generally take one extra club if the wind is a full crosswind, and maybe two if its slightly pointing towards you, but refer to the wind section for more information. In general, as you might expect, the drift of a ball in a crosswind is about the same as just the normal drift minus the draw/fade drift.

As an exercise, try using Fore Left's method for working out the lie effect from a sidehill and then use a fade or draw from that spot...you'll probably find that you can more or less just add the effect of the lie to the drift caused by fade/draw ( as shown above )...and you'll probably also notice in the wind section that the drift caused by a crosswind with fade or draw opposing is quite close to the simple sum of the normal drift - the fade/draw distance...eg the 5iron default drift in crosswind is about 72 feet, the fade/draw is 35 feet so balance a wind with the appropriate shot and youre left with about 37 feet..check the wind table, you'll see the drift of a 5iron in crosswind with fade/draw against is indeed about 40 feet !