One Bad Shot? Smart Senior Golfers Do This to Save the Round

Every senior golfer knows the feeling…you’re playing well, and then one bad shot throws everything off. But what if you could bounce back quickly… and maybe even save par?

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In this video, we break down real-world examples of how senior golfers can recover from poor shots—both strategically and mentally. You’ll learn how to stop chasing hero shots, manage frustration, and regain focus so the round doesn’t unravel.

It’s not just about swing mechanics. It’s about thinking smart, playing smart, and staying composed. And yes—these recovery strategies are built specifically with senior golfers in mind.

ever had a great round going and a poor shot comes out of nowhere that seemingly ruins your round or has the potential to what I’m going to do today is run you through some scenarios of how to recover from those shots now recovery is in a couple of different ways first of all is how do I think my way through so what’s my strategy what type of shot am I going to play that is going to give me the best chance of recovering but then there’s also the the mental emotional state i might get frustrated or annoyed which is a natural response but how am I going to recover from that what am I going to do about that and what’s my mental and emotional strategy let’s have a look at a few examples so I’ve hit my T-shot into the trees here the hero in me says I can see the pin through the trees there i want to have a crack at it now if I do that that’s all fine but what are the consequences if I look at the shot itself I’ve got a number of trees to to bypass on the way through and more importantly I need to consider the trajectory of the shot so we can see a branch going across here and golfing luck being what it is if I try and play through there I might hit it straight enough but the ball will hit the branch so I don’t want to do that my first goal in anytime I get I’m getting into trouble and this is the example i’ve hit it off the fairway i’m into the trees yes I can see the pin there’s a gap there but am I going to get the ball through there 70 to 80% of the time if I have 10 shots am I likely to get it through that gap seven or eight times out of 10 probably not if I do that one occasion that I do it maybe I can get it up somewhere near the green but the chances of me doing that successfully are quite small so what I’m going to do instead is I’m going to play a shot out to the left of the fairway there now I’m definitely going to avoid the tree i still have the consideration of tree overhang that I need to take care of so I’m not going to take a lofted club out of here all I want to do is run it out now the key thing when I’m running it out is I don’t want to hit too too far because I’ll go into the trees on the other side of the fairway so my objective here is a little bit like chess i want to set my move up my shot up so that the next one is going to be fairly easy so taking it fairly easy playing like a chip shot in this case I’ve just hit it with a seven iron i’ve got the ball out onto the fairway no problem whatsoever hasn’t gone so far that it’s gone into the the trees and the rough on the other side now I’ve got a clear shot for my next one so yes it’s a conservative approach but it’s also the smart approach because in the long run I might get away with a couple but the negative consequence of high scores on a whole which can ruin your entire round are very high there’s a psychological concept called ideal performance state now if you think the times that you’ve played your best golf it’s probably when you’ve been out with friends company that you enjoy being with you’re chatting and it’s almost like the golf gets in the way of the the social aspect of playing golf so you’re engaged more in some non-golf things which means that you’re not thinking too much about your game you’re not getting annoyed or frustrated with shots the the weather might be great but those occasions are not everyday occurrences so what we need to do is we need to look at the things that are likely to lead us more into that ideal performance state so what are some of the things that we can do well first of all if when you’re playing your best golf you’re just casually chatting and then you engage with the shot when it’s appropriate not thinking about how your round’s going the entire time that’s the first thing the second thing is if things start to come off the rails a little bit how are you going to get back so there’s one way of doing it that seems to work really really well and the first there’s a couple of steps to it the first is that I want to control my breathing so my breathing might become a little deeper and perhaps a little slower and you can do this while you’re walking down the fairway and when I breathe out I’m going to like physically relax even while I’m walking the second is that I want to control my posture so if my posture as I’m walking down the fairway is slumped I’m looking at my shoes then I need to bring my eyes up and I need to be looking forward looking at the horizon or looking at the green or something like that so I’m actually walking tall and walking with relatively briskly not slowly slumped shuffling or dragging my feet because the way I move is going to affect my mood so if I’m controlling my my posture and controlling my breathing that’s going to give me a really strong chance of starting to feel better so that I’m going to be in a better state to approach the next shot so I’ve left myself with quite an awkward shot here now my lie is not too bad it’s a little bit bare the pin’s over the corner of the bunker though as we can see now the hero shot is to go for the pin anyway the bunker is quite deep if the ball doesn’t get over the bunker and get onto the green I’ve actually got quite a difficult bunker shot and again we think of consequence of the shot if it doesn’t come off so clearly the most obvious shot here is to do play a shot that is going to avoid that bunker now I’m if I’m thinking maybe I can get it over the bunker in one putt what are my chances if we go to that 70 80% rule am I likely to do that seven or eight out of 10 only the absolute best players in the world will probably do that uh that’s clearly not me and with all respect probably not you so what I’m going to do instead is I’m going to play a shot very safely out to the left now the other thing that I’m going to do is I’m not going to use my lob wedge so most people will say “Well I’ve got to go up uphill a little bit i’m going to use the most lofted club.” Remember the mantra if I add loft I add risk to the shot so I don’t want to add risk to the shot so what I’m going to do is I’m going to play the shot with a pitching wedge the ball will land short of the green but because I’m hitting it with a lesser lofted club it’s going to give me a lot more control so I’m just playing a little chip shot i’m going to avoid that bunker and the ball’s safely on the green so now my putt is not too long anyway so it means that I’ve given myself a chance perhaps to one putt that is not a short putt so the likelihood is small but I’ve got a very very strong likelihood that I’m going to two putt at the most and of course had I not chosen to do that tried to go over the bunker had it not come off then would have been a lot worse so what we’ve looked at today is thinking strategically i want to play a shot that is going to lead to the next one being easiest to play i want to play a shot that is likely to be able to be executed six seven seven or eight out of 10 times i also want to control my my state because that’s going to help me to be able to perform better anyway and we sort of talked about posture and breathing for that one way of having less of those shots that you need to recover from is hitting the ball better in the first place and if you click the link below you can get the four videos that I’ve created around impact and how to create good impact so that those shots that go into the trees or get you into trouble are less likely to happen in the first place