Instruction

Don’t let the yips take you out of the game

Published

11 years ago

Oct 7, 2013

Editor’s Note: This article uses dirty words including sh@nk and y+ps.

Golf is a game that causes people to say a lot of strange things, as well as many four-letter words. But there are two topics that most golfers won’t dare discuss; one is the dreaded case of the “shanks,” but the other one might hurt your game even more. It’s the yips.

In this article I hope to give you some background information on the phenomenon we know as the yips. Generally, we see the yips rear its ugly head around the green. Golfers can develop the yips in putting or performing a chip shot. Occasionally, we see golfers develop something like the yips on the tee, as can be seen in this video of Kevin Na:

[youtube id=”oRKH4nIWRUg” width=”620″ height=”360″]

Nevertheless, as many of you may (unfortunately) identify with, the yips has a real and serious potential impact on both performance and enjoyment in golf. So, what do we know about the yips?

Prevalence

The number of people who have experienced the yips has been reported in research to be somewhere between 26 percent and 54 percent of golfers, with the higher estimates being returned in samples of low handicap (under 12) golfers.

Diagnosis

The leading definition for the existence of the yips comes in the form of a continuum. This continuum has two forms of “yippers,” namely Type 1 and Type 2 forms.

Type 1

Type 1 yips are defined by the existence of task-specific focal dystonia. This occurs in the presence of an involuntary and undesired movement of the muscles controlling the stroke/swing. The result can be a putt that sends the ball off in the wrong direction, or a chunked chip shot that hardly moves the ball.

Type 2

Type 2 yips are associated with the psychological phenomenon of choking. Choking occurs in athletes when they experience a severe performance drop off due to performance anxiety. In the case of Type 2 yips, this anxiety leads to a freezing or paralysis of performance (possibly as in the Kevin Na video), in which the athlete is unable to initiate or go through with execution.

So what happens to our “yippers?” Most of them will lose their enjoyment for golf. At this point, they make the decision of whether to leave the sport or seek some form of treatment.

Alleviating/Treatment

Players with the yips who decide to stay in golf have a few choices to make. The generally accepted method for Type 1 (dystonia) yippers is to move to a new grip, a new putter or different stance. This will slightly change the muscles used in the stroke and possibly bypass the affected technique.

Those who identify more with Type 2 (choking) yips are less likely to see benefits from physical changes, and tend to seek refuge outside of golf. This can come in two forms, one healthy and one not so much. The use of alcohol is common to calm the nerves for many recreational golfers, and some cannot function well on the course without it. There’s also beta blockers and blood pressure medications that can prevent an increase in heart rate during performance and reduce anxiety-related tremors and shaking (the PGA and LPGA Tour banned their use for that very reason in 2008). A healthier option than drugs, however, which will likely do more to at alleviating the effects of choking-related yips is seeking the advice of a sports psychologist.

I know golfers love do-it-yourself coaching, so here are some tips for those of you who suffer from the yips.

Discover more about the circumstances that cause you to yip. Make some detailed notes after your round on the scenario, the feelings, the thoughts and the outcomes from each of your yipped shots. You might not remember everything that went through your head, but if you give yourself time to reflect, you may come up with some important themes (P.S. Chances are your expectations are too high or don’t match your ability. That’s something I have noticed with my clients).
Seek out and practice strategies that will combat the themes discovered in the previous step. These could include breathing techniques, imagery, a change to your practice putt strategy, etc. It depends entirely on what you are doing already. To make a change will have to use a trial-and-error process on the course, and it’s important to set up scenarios that simulate the pressure you feel on the course. Your yips may not be present in practice; therefore, you will have to risk yipping (which will probably happen anyway) to discover the technique that will work.
Remember that there is no magic key to fix the yips. Stick with a strategy and work on it. Your yips have developed over a great deal of time, it will take just as long to completely iron them out. Every small improvement you make, whether to your performance or calmness, is a step in the right direction.

Because the yips are such a complex and multifaceted problem, we still have much more learning to do to fully understand their development, nature and possible alleviation techniques. You now know a little more about this all-too-common problem, and we all know knowledge is power. Hopefully we will stop losing people to our wonderful game due to the yips!

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Instruction

Clement: Laid-off or perfect fade? Across-the-line or perfect draw?

Published

23 hours ago

Apr 24, 2024

Shawn Clement

Some call the image on the left laid off, but if you are hitting a fade, this could be a perfect backswing for it! Same for across the line for a draw! Stop racking your brain with perceived mistakes and simply match backswing to shot shape!

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Instruction

The Wedge Guy: The easiest-to-learn golf basic

Published

4 weeks ago

Mar 29, 2024

Terry Koehler

My golf learning began with this simple fact – if you don’t have a fundamentally sound hold on the golf club, it is practically impossible for your body to execute a fundamentally sound golf swing. I’m still a big believer that the golf swing is much easier to execute if you begin with the proper hold on the club.

As you might imagine, I come into contact with hundreds of golfers of all skill levels. And it is very rare to see a good player with a bad hold on the golf club. There are some exceptions, for sure, but they are very few and very far between, and they typically have beat so many balls with their poor grip that they’ve found a way to work around it.

The reality of biophysics is that the body moves only in certain ways – and the particulars of the way you hold the golf club can totally prevent a sound swing motion that allows the club to release properly through the impact zone. The wonderful thing is that anyone can learn how to put a fundamentally sound hold on the golf club, and you can practice it anywhere your hands are not otherwise engaged, like watching TV or just sitting and relaxing.

Whether you prefer an overlap, interlock or full-finger (not baseball!) grip on the club, the same fundamentals apply. Here are the major grip faults I see most often, in the order of the frequency:

Mis-aligned hands

By this I mean that the palms of the two hands are not parallel to each other. Too many golfers have a weak left hand and strong right, or vice versa. The easiest way to learn how to hold the club with your palms aligned properly is to grip a plain wooden ruler or yardstick. It forces the hands to align properly and shows you how that feels. If you grip and re-grip a yardstick several times, then grip a club, you’ll see that the learning curve is almost immediate.

The position of the grip in the upper/left hand

I also observe many golfers who have the butt of the grip too far into the heel pad of the upper hand (the left hand for right-handed players). It’s amazing how much easier it is to release the club through the ball if even 1/4-1/2″ of the butt is beyond the left heel pad. Try this yourself to see what I mean. Swing the club freely with just your left hand and notice the difference in its release from when you hold it at the end of the grip, versus gripping down even a half inch.

To help you really understand how this works, go to the range and hit shots with your five-iron gripped down a full inch to make the club the same length as your seven-iron. You will probably see an amazing shot shape difference, and likely not see as much distance loss as you would expect.

Too much lower (right) hand on the club

It seems like almost all golfers of 8-10 handicap or higher have the club too far into the palm of the lower hand, because that feels “good” if you are trying to control the path of the clubhead to the ball. But the golf swing is not an effort to hit at the ball – it is a swing of the club. The proper hold on the club has the grip underneath the pad at the base of the fingers. This will likely feel “weak” to you — like you cannot control the club like that. EXACTLY. You should not be trying to control the club with your lower/master hand.

Gripping too tightly

Nearly all golfers hold the club too tightly, which tenses up the forearms and prevents a proper release of the club through impact. In order for the club to move back and through properly, you must feel that the club is controlled by the last three fingers of the upper hand, and the middle two fingers of the lower hand. If you engage your thumbs and forefingers in “holding” the club, the result will almost always be a grip that is too tight. Try this for yourself. Hold the club in your upper hand only, and squeeze firmly with just the last three fingers, with the forefinger and thumb off the club entirely. You have good control, but your forearms are not tense. Then begin to squeeze down with your thumb and forefinger and observe the tensing of the entire forearm. This is the way we are made, so the key to preventing tenseness in the arms is to hold the club very lightly with the “pinchers” — the thumbs and forefingers.

So, those are what I believe are the four fundamentals of a good grip. Anyone can learn them in their home or office very quickly. There is no easier way to improve your ball striking consistency and add distance than giving more attention to the way you hold the golf club.

Clement: Stop ripping off your swing with this drill!

Published

2 months ago

Mar 4, 2024

Shawn Clement

Not the dreaded headcover under the armpit drill! As if your body is defective and can’t function by itself! Have you seen how incredible the human machine is with all the incredible feats of agility all kinds of athletes are accomplishing? You think your body is so defective (the good Lord is laughing his head off at you) that it needs a headcover tucked under the armpit so you can swing like T-Rex?

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