The 10 Best Golf Tips for Seniors – Play Great Golf at Any Age!

Britt Olizarowicz

Apr 18, 2024 . 8 mins read

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If you think you have to give up low scores and straight shots as you get older, think again.

There are strategies to become a better golfer as you age. In fact, some golfers actually play better as they get older.

With just a little bit of focused practice, you can continue to play better than you did when you were 20 years younger.

Best Golf Tips for Seniors (Key Takeaways)

Time to read through all of our best golf tips for seniors; here are the most important ones to remember right now:

• The short game (100 yards and in) is your best place to gain strokes and shoot lower scores, so start focusing your practice here.
• Seniors also struggle with alignment, which is in addition to losing distance. Practice your alignment at the range.
• Wrist angles not only control the ball flight but also impact your putting and short game too. Use HackMotion to learn where your mistakes are.
• Incorporate fitness and stretching if you want to maximize distance as long as possible.

10 Best Golf Tips for Seniors

As a senior golfer, it’s important to know your limitations. Each of our 10 best actionable tips for your game will help you get started working towards lower scores today. Work through these one at a time.

Practice From 100 Yards and In the Most

The biggest issue that senior golfers face is difficulty in creating distance. However, from 100 yards and in, there is nothing that holds you back from being the best player on the course!

Start working on drills to help you with distance control, alignment, and ball flight.

Try to have a high and a low shot from 25, 50, 75, and 100 yards you can rely on.

Incorporate Fitness and Stretching Into Your Routine

Those days of running up to the first tee, grabbing a club, and playing a great round are done.

At this point in your life you have to fight against your body trying to tighten up and become stiff each day.

Add a daily walk to your routine and get a golf stretching aid to help you make progress. You can use something like a weighted club or even a lightweight medicine ball to swing.

Do this daily, even when not playing golf. Focus on that flexibility in your hips and shoulders.

These are the areas where you are going to gain the most speed.

Get Your Wrist Angles Right

Many senior golfers have spent their entire golfing career never fully understanding how the wrists work in the golf game.

The lead wrist needs to be flat at impact if you want to maximize your distance and keep your golf shots straight.

For most players, the problem is too much extension in the lead wrist.

The extension is there at the top of the swing making a cupping shape and then it continues down through impact and creates a weak hit.

HackMotion is a great way to measure your wrist angles and then work on correcting them.

Love the device and the videos. Tremendous help. I am 82 years old with a 3 handicap and hitting the ball better than I did when I was 25 years old!

HackMotion user

Find the Proper Pressure Points in Your Feet

Weight transfer is very important for senior golfers. Proper weight transfer makes the swing more efficient and gives you a better chance of hitting shots with more distance and consistency.

One of the most helpful tips for senior players is to work on transferring your weight to the inside of your trail leg on the backswing.

If the weight moves to the heel of your hoot or the toes, you are not properly transferring weight.

Take some half-backswings where you feel that pressure on the inside of your leg. You should find a cleaner impact position and a more consistent strike. Practice this with the short game and then move it to the full swing.

If you have a bad hip or knee, turn the trail foot out a quarter turn to help release some of the pressure.

Check Alignment

Not properly lining up your golf shot is a complete waste. It’s just not worth even taking the club back if you don’t have it lined up to the target.

Make alignment part of your pre-shot routine.

Alignment is one of the things golfers forget to practice the most.

When you hit golf balls on the driving range, use alignment sticks on the ground to make sure you are set up to your target.

Make Equipment Adjustments

The day you turn 50 is not the day to buy a senior set of golf clubs.

Instead, slowly work on upgrading and tweaking your clubs so they work for your game.

The first change you will likely see is an inability to hit long irons as well as you once did. Start trading these clubs out for hybrids.

Also, consider putting a graphite shaft in your irons and wedges.

Eventually, you can move towards more forgiving senior shafted clubs.

However, if you do it a little at a time, you’ll match your golf game more closely and become a better player because of it.

Stabilize the Wrists in Putting

You’ve probably heard the importance of keeping more of a pendulum-type stroke when you putt.

You’ll make a more consistent stroke and keep the ball moving towards the hole on the proper line.

However, most golfers, even while maintaining this pendulum-type stroke, also move their wrists more than they should.

After analyzing more than 1,000,000 putting strokes, we have determined that a stable amount of flexion or extension in the lead wrist throughout the stroke is a key indicator of the best putters.

There is no perfect wrist angle. Instead, the angles just have to stay consistent throughout the stroke.

Here’s a great drill to work on your wrist action when putting.

Don’t be Afraid of Technology

As a senior golfer, you need to use technology to your advantage.

Purchasing something like a rangefinder or GPS is a smart idea. You’ll also want to track your golf game as much as possible.

See where you are losing the most amount of strokes. For most seniors the issue is 150 yards and in. This should be where the majority of your practice is focused.

When tracking things like putting, don’t just count the number of putts; also, track how long they are and how much you miss them. You’ll be able to recognize these weak areas of your game and make changes accordingly.

The key is to use technology in golf clubs, training equipment, and launch monitors to improve your game. It’s made for seniors, too!

Set Realistic Goals – Especially in the Short Game

Set goals for your golf game that you can achieve.

Try to go through a round without a three putt. If you do three putt, spend a few minutes on the putting green after your round working on lag putts.

Work on getting out of the bunker in one shot every time.

Try to get at least one up-and-down or scrambling save in every round.

These realistic goals are much easier to obtain than something like “drop my handicap four shots.”

However, if you can achieve a series of short term goals, the chance of you lowering that handicap is considerably higher.

Visualize Your Shots

Another area of the game where senior golfers can compete and actually beat the junior players is in golf shot visualization.

Learn to picture the results you want on every swing.

This can be a shot down the middle of the fairway or a putt going in the hole.

However, if you can be more positive mentally and visualize the perfect shot, you’ll pull it off more often than you think. Here’s a great video to help you visualize golf shots.

In Summary

As golfers age, some degree of speed and power loss will inevitably occur.

To score lower as you age, use experience, smart golf course management, and close attention to the details in your game.

Golfers are finding success by gaining speed, improving their short game, and focusing on positive mental thoughts on the course.

Go give it a try, and let us know how it goes.