Dave Pelz on Recovering from Trouble

This video from the golf.com "Pelz Vault" shows Dave Pelz's advice on dealing with tree trouble... but listen carefully because this short clip is full of strategic help for all kinds of problems:



I'll summarize his tips here, but these are the kinds of things that take strokes off your game without any practice at all!

• Sometimes you just get bad breaks; they happen to everybody. Don't let them get to you and cause you to make bad decisions.
• Play the percentage shot, the one you KNOW you can pull off. If you choose the shot that gets you safely back in play, you may still avoid the penalty. (That's what he means by "making the penalty less than a shot;" sometimes you'll get up and down without any penalty if you leave yourself in position to do so!)
• Choke down a little on the club to give yourself better control of the shot.
• Very important: Check where the bottom of your swing is! No matter how well you plan the shot, if you don't make good contact you're just wasting your time.

As I said, these are all things that you can do without any extra practice. When you can save shots for free, by all means do so!