Thursday at Riviera, three hours of rain delays turned the Genesis Invitational into a survival test. Rory McIlroy navigated the mess and posted a 5-under 66 — his lowest opening round ever at Riviera. Scottie Scheffler, the world's number one, went 5-over through his first 10 holes.
Same course. Same conditions. Wildly different outcomes.
Rain is the great equalizer in golf. It rewards preparation and punishes stubbornness. Most amateurs treat a rainy round as a write-off before they even tee it up. That's a mistake. Some of the best scoring rounds of your life can happen in the rain — if you know how to adjust.
Grip Is Everything
Here's the single biggest difference between a good wet-weather round and a miserable one: how well you hold onto the club.
When your grips get wet, you squeeze harder. When you squeeze harder, you lose clubhead speed, restrict your release, and hit stiff, pushed shots. It's a cascade effect, and most golfers never trace the problem back to the source.
What to do:
- Carry a dry towel inside your bag, not dangling from the outside. Keep it in a ziplock bag or a waterproof pocket. This is your most important piece of rain gear.
- Wear a rain glove. Regular leather gloves get slippery when wet. Rain gloves — made of synthetic materials — actually grip better the wetter they get. Bring at least two so you can rotate.
- Re-grip between shots. After every swing, towel off the grip. Don't just wipe the club face and forget it.
- Consider your grip condition. If your grips are worn and slick in dry conditions, they'll be dangerously bad in the rain. Fresh grips are cheap insurance. If you play in rain regularly, cord grips or multi-compound grips with a rougher texture are worth considering.
Club Selection: Take More and Swing Less
Wet conditions affect distance in ways that compound on each other:
- The ball doesn't roll. Fairways and greens are softer, so you lose rollout on drives and approach shots. Expect 10-20 fewer yards off the tee from reduced roll alone.
- Spin is unpredictable. Water between the clubface and ball reduces friction, creating "flyers" from the fairway — shots that launch with less spin and fly further than expected. From the rough, the same effect is magnified. You'll occasionally get a shot that goes 15 yards long with no warning.
- The air is denser. Humid, rainy air is actually less dense than dry air (water vapor is lighter than nitrogen and oxygen), but the ball itself gets heavier when wet. The net effect is usually a slight distance loss.
The smart play: take one more club on every approach shot and make a controlled, three-quarter swing. You'll make better contact, the ball will land softer on receptive greens, and you'll avoid the thin, skulled shots that come from trying to swing hard with wet hands.
Tour pros know this instinctively. Watch their tempo in the rain — it gets smoother, not faster.
Course Management Changes in the Rain
Wet conditions demand a different strategic mindset. The course is playing longer, greens are holding more, and the penalty for missing is amplified.
Play to the fat side of every green. In dry conditions, you might fire at a tight pin because a miss still bounces and runs onto the putting surface. In the rain, a miss is a miss. The ball stops where it lands. Aim for the center of greens and let the putting sort itself out.
Avoid bunkers at all costs. Wet sand is heavy sand. Bunker shots from waterlogged traps are some of the hardest shots in golf. The club digs instead of sliding, distance control vanishes, and you can easily leave it in the bunker. Take a line that gives you maximum margin from greenside bunkers, even if it means a longer putt.
Be more aggressive off the tee — sometimes. If the fairway is soft and there's no rollout, that driver you normally keep in the bag on tight holes might be safe to use. A ball that carries 240 and stops dead isn't finding the fairway bunker that usually catches your drives at 260. Think about where hazards are relative to your carry distance, not your total distance.
Adjust your putting expectations. Wet greens are slower greens. Your biggest mistake won't be three-putting from being aggressive — it'll be leaving every putt short because you didn't commit to the speed. Hit it. Dying putts on wet greens break less and miss more.
The Mental Side: Embrace the Ugly
Rory McIlroy didn't shoot 66 at Riviera by expecting perfection. He embraced the grind.
Here's the psychological trap of rain golf: you see the conditions, tell yourself "this is going to be awful," and then every bad shot confirms what you already believed. You're playing with a negative filter, and it becomes self-fulfilling.
The antidote is reframing. Rain rounds are not about your best game — they're about your most resilient game. Every par feels like a birdie. Every bogey is acceptable. The threshold for "a good shot" drops dramatically, and that's actually freeing.
Lower your expectations before the round, not your effort. Tell yourself that shooting 5-7 strokes above your normal score would be a good wet-weather round. If you normally shoot 85, anything under 92 in the rain is legitimately solid. Now you're playing with house money, and the pressure disappears.
The golfers who score well in the rain are the ones who stay patient when everyone else gets frustrated. That's not talent — that's a choice.
Gear Checklist for Wet Weather
Don't show up to a rainy round with just an umbrella and a prayer. Here's the full kit:
- Rain jacket and pants: Modern rain gear is breathable and doesn't restrict your swing. Don't wear a garbage bag from 2005. If your rain gear is stiff, replace it.
- Waterproof shoes: This is non-negotiable. Wet feet change your stance, your balance, and your mood. Gore-Tex lined shoes or modern waterproof models are worth every penny.
- Two rain gloves: Rotate them. When one gets saturated, switch to the other and let the first one recover.
- Extra towels (at least two): One stays dry inside the bag. One works the rotation.
- Ziplock bags: For your phone, scorecard, wallet, and your dry towel.
- Umbrella: Obviously. But clip it to your bag — don't hold it between shots. Your hands need to stay as dry as possible.
- Extra socks: If you're walking 18 in the rain, fresh socks at the turn can save your back nine.
- Hat with a brim: Keeps rain out of your eyes better than any visor. A wide-brimmed hat is even better.
The Hidden Advantage
Here's what most amateurs don't realize: rain rounds are an opportunity.
In competitive settings — club championships, tournaments, even casual nassaus — bad weather thins the field mentally before a single shot is hit. Half your opponents have already given up. They're going through the motions, checking their phone for the weather radar, thinking about the clubhouse.
If you're the one who shows up prepared, with dry grips, a game plan, and the right mindset, you've already gained strokes on the field before you tee off.
Rory McIlroy didn't have a special wet-weather swing on Thursday. He had preparation, patience, and the willingness to compete when conditions got ugly. That's available to every golfer at every level.
Next time the forecast calls for rain on your tee time, don't cancel. Gear up, adjust your game plan, and go play. You might surprise yourself.
