Warren, thanks for taking the time to record the winds and post them. I've seen the same consistency of direction on 2,3 and 4 and then nothing makes sense from then on.
I overlaid your wind directions for each hole on the aerial photo and it really shows clearly how unrealistic the wind changes are. There would need to be a tornado spinning thru the area to get those wind shifts IRL.
On top of that, I found a website, Windfinder, that gives the probability of wind from any direction at St. Andrews, in any month. Its based on 10 yrs of historical wind direction data from 7am to 7pm. Surprisingly, to me, the dominant wind at St. Andrews is from the West, an onshore wind heading out to sea. Maybe I'm surprised because I'm an inland guy. Only in May does an East wind dominate, all other months its from the West.
I added the probability of winds in the direction you saw during the month of July, when The Open is held. In general, at St. Andrews in July the winds are from these directions:
Northerly (NW to NE) 7.5% of the time.
Easterly (NE to SE) 29.5%
Southerly (SE to SW) 12%
Westerly (SW to NW) 42%
The probability of you getting wind in July from either the S or SE is 4 out of 100. You got those 4 times in 9 holes!!
Not only are the wind changes unrealistic, but the wind directions are unrealistic. I'd bet you could play St. Andrews every day for a lifetime, maybe even 10 lifetimes and never get those same wind directions. Another way of saying it, hitting downwind on 3 and 4 happens IRL 2 out of 100 times.
If WGT is striving for realism we will never get the true feel of playing St. Andrews without the wind reflecting real life instead of randomness.
