Renn, please allow me to try and answer what you have so eloquently documented. Before my health got the better of me in 1997, I was a -1 golfer and played in many an amateur and pro-am tourneys around the country on some of the best known tracks around. If I learned 1 thing playing these courses in all types of weather is this......The only shot that you can be absolutely sure of......is the one you just hit.
Hitting into a 25mph headwind is a 3 iron one day and one the very next day with identical conditions a 3 metal would not have been enough. The conditions seemed to be identical, but were they really? GOLF IS NOT A GAME OF PERFECT!!! That's why we love it so much.
In my entire life, I have NEVER played a course where the wind was blowing the same way on each hole. If that were the case you'd tee off on #1 and finish on the 18th green 45 miles away from the first tee....lol.
I've played this game for fun, under extreme pressure, you name it. We look at our upcoming shot, take into consideration all the variables, pull what we hope is the right club, put our best swing on it and.............hope/pray we were right. Sometimes we are, sometimes not so much. We do the best we can with the knowledge we have. That is exactly the way I play our game here.
I will not claim to have all the answers, but I do know I have been right a lot more times than I have been wrong. And when those wrong times come at the most inopportune times......I scratch my head, say a dirty word, forget about it.........and on to the next shot.
Don't feel lost......you will find your way. And when you do, you feel what every golfer cherishes. There is no other feeling like it in sports.
"see you in the short grass"......................."gv"