Perhaps because there is no pressure in sports, being alone on a crucial putt can be a harrowing experience. Not only for professionals like Tiger Woods or Jack Nicklaus, who find themselves in 18th place at a US Open or at the Augusta National, but also for club golfers from all over the world. And this pressure can often be compounded by a case of yips.
Whether you’re a low handicapper playing in your club tournament or a ’90s shooter looking to win your ring for your team, yips can stop you in your tracks. This nerve condition is represented by a sudden loss of fine motor skills, and you may find yourself on a putt unable to retrieve the club.
If the yips hit you at this inopportune moment, you may find yourself waving the club like a 30 handicap, or you may not even be able to move. It has happened to professionals of all levels. The yips have gotten the best of 8-time major winner Tom Watson, Champions Tour hero Bernhard Langer and all-time great potential Johnny Miller.
Yips can be known as jerks, stutters, wobbles, or jerks, and are anything but conducive to low rounds. This distraction from your game is caused by past trauma, likely on the greens, tees, or fairways, and can be difficult to eradicate.
If your yips find missed putts, can’t think about the course, or can’t move, you may have tried to get rid of them. But the most common cures attempted for yips are often done the wrong way, by changing the mechanics or altering the fundamentals of their gameplay.
Using this method for yips in golf is like opening a leaky kitchen sink and trying to clean up the mess without turning off the faucet. Yips are a nerve issue with your internal energy, and changing your game is like picking up that mop. You’ll still have the yips with his new mechanic if he doesn’t “turn off the water” first.
To look at it another way: The shifting mechanical approach of yips is like trying to mow the lawn, just to get rid of a week-old problem. Mowing the lawn will kill the weeds for a few days, but they will inevitably grow back. Changing your mechanic to an unnatural style will have the same effect. You will focus on your new grip, putter or swing for a few days, but the yips will also return to this new style.
These yips can be managed but it takes knowledge of the right methods and the right ways to eradicate the problem of golf yips for good.
With golf yips, you have to attack the weed at the root. In your golf swing, you must attack the cause of your problems, which are the yips, not your swing. Attacking the yips themselves will allow you to swing your swing, whether new or old fundamentally, without the twitches, jerks, wobbles, or freezes that are holding your game back.