Okay we’re going use a horrible word, a bit of a square word in golf is called Yips and if any out there is watching this and I’m sure if you are watching this, you have got a problem with your putting. Yips is probably the most destroying thing that can actually happen in the game of golf. So all the way down from the tee to the green and conventional fundamental golf shot and get there and from eight putt to three putts, four putts on a regular basis. It’s absolutely heart-destroying. It really is. It destroys your confidence.

So what is a Yip? A yip is really more of a nervous action, you get creeps and nobody can say why it happened, but a yip is just imagine being over a putt, and all of a sudden you go, and you think my goodness it was over in a flash. There was no back sway, it was a push, it was a shove. It was a flick with the wrists and I’ve seen this so many times as a coach and indeed I’ve actually experienced this maybe 25, 30 years ago myself. You’ve got a Putt from hill and all of a sudden it’s jerky. So yips is a nervous reaction that goes on. It’s something that’s hard to describe what causes it, but some of the things that we can actually do to try and get rid of the yips, are what we’re going to talk about today.

The first thing is confidence. Well, it’s all right to say you just have confidence, but we’ve got to build our way up to getting confidence. Now for me there are a couple of ways of actually getting rid of the yips. I think the first one is to set you right. We you come up to a porch and you set yourself up imagine you’ve been yipping for months years whatever. It’s to set yourself up and to almost imagine that you’ve got blinkers on. Imagine you’ve got blinkers on so you align yourself for the hole and all I want you to do is just focus on your breathing.

So when you breathe, I want you to breath slow. I want you to breather deep. Now some of you are chuckling at home and thinking come on you’ve got to be better than this. I mean serious. When you nervous your breath is going quicker, it’s quicker and yes it’s shriveling. Your heart is racing, your pulse is going. That’s what happens when you get nervous. So you get into position where you’re confronting, and you’re not comfortable. This is part of the game.

So I want you to breathe slower. I want you to breathe in. Take that deep breath and let it out slowly. Now you do that three or four times truly looking up the screen now and feel it. So your work is going to be so relaxed. Do it with me, breathe in, and let it out slowly. Are you not telling me that you feel from your chest and your shoulder there’s a big weight gone off? That’s number one an once you get used to breathing slowly and deeply, it really helps.

The second thing I want you to work on is I want to put the ball not far from the hole and I want you to put two clubs down really down, a nice little pathway towards the hole. And simply I want you to put the Putter in between the two shafts and a ball and I just want you to swing the Putter between the two shafts and through between the two shafts. So you’re not thinking about I’ve got to hold this club, you’re thinking about breathing, you’re thinking about technique. So you’re now focusing, your focus is away from I’ve got to hold this putt which is causing more anxiety to what I’m about to do.

Now if you take that putter back between those two shafts backwards and forwards guess what? It’s got to go on the hole, because you’ve lined the two clubs up and that club is going between the gate where those two shafts has to go in. And I want it to go away and welcome that as my number one thing for yip. Number one is to get that into your mind, slower breathing, deeper breathing, two clubs all in the middle and stroke between the two clubs. Not focusing on trying to hold, but doing the exercise, keeping the clubs between the two shafts.

The second thing I want you t work on is consider one of these two grips. You can either go for the claw grip where the left hand goes just where you would normally put them with the club, the right hand comes in, the thumb goes underneath the back. At the back of that to putter, just under your here and the four fingers go on the top. And so they just sit on the top there and it’s nice and lights. That’s the claw.

Or you can go for the cat grip where you put your right hand on the top and put your left below. So do you feel comfortable there? But I’ve got both thumbs going down the center so for a nice, balanced putting grip.

From here, the whole idea with that grip or this grip is it takes out the activity of the wrist. Remember right at the beginning we said it has to be a bit of a shove and a push. So there’s two things I want you to work on. [Indiscernible] [0:05:05] want me to go over again two things and then from there if you find yourself still struggling, I’ll be amazed if you are still struggling after those two things. I really will be.

But what I want you to do, I want you to concentrate on just putting the balls around the hole, psyche yourself up, don’t look at the holes, line yourself up, and focus on tempo. Remember we slowed the breathing down, we’re taking deep breaths, align yourself up and from here back and forth, and don’t worry if it misses, it misses. That’s the fact of life. That’s what happens to some of the best golfers in the world. Focus on the two aspects I’ve mentioned and I know you will improve. It is not a five-minute fix. Go on and practice in the Putting Green, put the time in and you will get those results. I did.