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How to Finally Shake the Dreaded Putting Yips

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How to Finally Shake the Dreaded Putting Yips

If you’ve read any other articles meant to address the yips, you have probably seen one piece of advice over and over again – focus on your routine.

Most golf teachers will tell you to simply lean on your routine to get you through the yips, as the process of preparing to hit your putt is supposed to distract you from the fear that you have over missing the short putt you face.  Trust your routine, they say, and everything will work out in the end.

But what if that doesn’t help?

Make no mistake, using your routine to deal with pressure on the course is good advice.  Every golfer should have a consistent pre-shot routine—a concept we discuss in great detail here—no matter if they are hitting a long drive or a short putt.  However, simply looking to your routine alone might not be enough to eliminate the yips.  When you have done everything you can with your routine—and you still are fighting the yips—you will need to move on to some other solutions.

Oh, and if you’re fighting a bad case of the yips, try not to be too hard on yourself.  It happens to the best of us…

So let’s talk about a few alternative solutions for the yips.  Hopefully, one of these fixes (or a combination of these fixes) will get you back on track.

Select An Extremely Specific Target

When you face a short putt, what do you use for a target?  Most likely, your answer to this question is “the hole.”  Unfortunately, that isn’t going to be good enough in most cases.

Obviously you want the ball to end up in the bottom of the hole, but you should be using a much more specific target as a way of keeping your ball on line.  When you only aim at the hole rather than something more specific, your stroke often will turn into a “hit and hope” operation – and that is never a good thing.

To narrow in your focus on a more-specific target, pick out a point between your ball and the hole that you can use as a midway point.  On a straight putt, this point will be directly between the ball and the hole.  On a breaking putt, it will be slightly off to one side or the other in order to allow for the ball to curve into the hole.

This point could be a discolored spot on the green, a slightly longer blade of grass, or anything else that catches your eye.  Once you pick out your point, do your best to roll the ball directly over the top of that point.  Instead of focusing on the hole, focus your mind only on that spot that you have selected.  As long as you can hit that spot, the ball should be on track to fall in when it reaches the cup.

The Wedge Method

If you are open to thinking outside the box in order to find a solution to your yips, you just might like this next idea.

While this is generally meant as a practice drill, you could even take it out onto the course if you are truly desperate.  During your next trip to the practice area at your local course, try taking your most-lofted wedge out onto the putting green to use as a putter on your short putts from inside three feet (or so).  While you might get a few strange looks from the other golfers, the goal is to put the ball in the hole regardless of which club is in your hands—and you just might be able to do that better with your wedge than you can with the putter (at least, for now).

The method you are going to use when putting with your wedge is known as “bellying the ball.”  You aren’t going to hit the shot with the club face, but rather with the leading edge of the wedge.  By making a putting stroke with your wedge and contacting the ball right on the equator, you should be able to get a nice roll time after time.

Putting Yips

It will take a bit of practice to learn how to do this correctly, but you might be surprised to see how nicely the ball will roll off of your wedge once you master the technique.

So how can using your wedge to putt cure you of the yips?  It all comes down to perspective.

When you use your putter, there is no challenge in trying to make the ball roll nicely—so your mind is free to worry about missing.  However, when putting with a wedge, you are focused simply on making good contact, meaning you don’t have time or “brain space” to worry about failing.  Most likely, you will find that your yips don’t exist when using the wedge, and you will probably knock the ball in time after time.

Light Grip Pressure

The yips are frequently related to grip pressure.  If you are holding onto the putter too tightly at address, you will run the risk of ‘yipping’ the stroke prior to impact.

You want the control of your putting stroke to be in your shoulders and arms, but that control can sneak down into your wrists and hands if you squeeze the grip.

Light grip pressure is one of the best ways to cure the yips, as it is something that is easy to monitor and maintain during your stroke.  If you can keep your grip light on the handle of the putter from the start of the stroke through to the finish, it is highly unlikely that you will deal with the yips—it’s just that simple.

Of course, you should start out by working on a lighter grip pressure on the practice green.  Stand a few feet from the hole and stroke some putts while using a grip that seems impossibly light.  You should be holding on so lightly that the club feels as though it is going to fall from your hands.  With that as your starting point, gradually increase your grip pressure until you find a nice balance between control and freedom.  If you are able to take your new light grip with you out onto the course, there is a good chance that your yips will be a problem of the past.

There is no guarantee that any of these three ideas are going to be the magic cure for your yips, but they certainly are a good place to start.  Try each of these three tips for yourself until you start to see some progress on the course.

Recommended Further Reading

If you want to dive even deeper into the subject of curing your putting yips we suggest checking out these “staff favorite” resources:

Good luck out there!


Cover Photo via Flickr

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