As many of you know, I’ve struggled with the yips for quite some time. It usually rears it’s head on short putts for birdie, or longer uphill putts – neither of which are conducive to shooting low. Over the year’s I’ve tried just about every fix known to man, from belly putter to cross-handed grips to the claw… you name it, I’ve tried it. These past two years I’ve started to stroke the flat stick a lot better, and I wanted to share with you the technical change I’ve made to my stroke to see if it may help you. You’ll likely laugh, but the non-technical change I’ve made involves numbing my brain slightly with a few beers (oddly this works like a charm) – haha.
Anyway, in my experience, my yips were caused by my right wrist being overactive in the stroke. Over time in my attempts to try and steer the ball online, my grip got tighter and also stronger in its placement on the shaft. My stroke became more of a stab, and consistency was a real struggle.
Interestingly, the stronger you place your right on the shaft (ie. the more its turned to the left from a neutral position), the more your wrists can influence the movement of the shaft. The opposite is also true, and herein lies my fix to my overactive wrists. Simply rotating my dominate hand to a weaker position on the putting shaft took the majority of its ‘controlling nature’ out of my stroke. All of a sudden I could begin to stroke the putter smoothly again.
This approach, combined with a fatter grip, and a couple of brews did the trick for me this season. If anything, this year gave me enough confidence to re-join a league, and get back into the game… looking forward to next season to boot!
Hit em straight!
Image source: http://www.golftoday.co.uk/
Being a right hand golfer I have for the past 20 years used the left hand below the right hand grip this has stopped any wrist movement. Uncomfortable to start with but effective and it takes out all the paralysis by analysis and of course discourages the dreaded YIPS!!! Thanks for another great post, love your website
Great article on the putting yips. I sometimes use too much wrist in my putting stroke so I know this is good advice for me. I think the best advice is to practice putting more and try to keep your wrist action to a minimum even on long putts.
This may help. It is called clear key. You must free the mind of how to do something before you can do it without thought. Several players on tour use this. On short putts, set up to make the putt, when taking the putter back, say “one” and when the putter contacts the ball going through, say “two”. So on all your putts, just say one-two under your breath. Work great on short putts.