It depends on turbulence and whether there's thermals. My usual practice field is on a shelf between a bluff coming down from the high lands and a bluff going down to a river, on the inside of a bend. There's one magic direction where the wind comes in steadily -- otherwise the wind roll over one bluff or another and be turbulent. Moreover, the CL field is in a pocket in the trees where thermals like to stall for a while before they detach.
We've had wind that blows one way on the ground and another at 50 feet up, wind that shifts from blowing strongly in one direction for one maneuver to blowing 180 degrees out for the next, wind that's in your face no matter where you turn (that's when you wish you were flying a thermal machine), wind that's absolutely dead calm for months, and every once in a great while, wind that's strong and steady in one direction.
At the Fall Follies in Salem last year we had a dust devil come through and smack a plane out of the sky in Advanced -- then it played with the pieces for about a minute before it finally let go of all the little bits. I'm not sure if any but the best wind pilot would have been able to save things.