Dealing With Golf Putting Yips (Video) - Lesson by PGA Pro Pete Styles
Dealing With Golf Putting Yips (Video) - Lesson by PGA Pro Pete Styles

Now I’m going to deal with a putting topic that very few people actually want to deal with themselves and its having the putting yips. And I stress that people don’t want to deal with it themselves because a lot of people don’t actually admit that they’ve got the putting yips. They don’t really feel like it’s a problem that affects them. It’s a problem that happens to other people. It’s a problem that happens to that guy on telly when he missed that short putt. But if people are honest with themselves quite often, their missed putts are going to be down to the yips. Some people are actually yip the ball and it will go in the hole. They’ll make a very nervous jerky action and hook the ball off line; the ball then breaks back in and goes into a hole. Goes into the hole and it’s often a break that the golfer themselves didn’t see effectively. They were aiming straight, pulled the ball offline; the ball then breaks back online and goes in. So they’re yipping the ball more often than not, sometimes it goes in, sometimes it doesn’t. So the yips we’ve got to have a good focus on firstly admitting that we’ve got the yips now we can start to do something about correcting them. Now if you are yipping the putt, there is going to be three main areas I’d like to focus on. The first would be grip pressure. The second would be moving your eyes too much. And the third would just be having a better focus on looking down at the golf ball correctly.

So if we are gripping the club too tightly, then it tends to be quite tense and from three or four feet away from the hole rather than just having the club resting in the fingers softly, we feel like we are really grabbing hold of it. Then the putting stroke becomes too fickly, too nervous, too quick, so grip the club nice and lightly if you are struggling with the yips. Next area I’d like to focus on is going to be having your eyes directly over the top of the golf ball and not letting your eyes follow the ball as you are making your stroke. So we set up nicely to the ball, we make a back and a through swing as we come through to the ball this way. And we make a nice solid action without the head looking up and watching too much as we go ahead and make the stroke, so back and through, eyes directly over the top of the ball looking down the whole time. And the next thing to focus on is maybe just to actually turn the golf ball, so when you put the ball down on the floor you can actually see the symbol, the maker’s name. Have your eyes focused on that point there. Make a nice smooth stroke looking at that point the whole time. Keep your eyes down on the point where that was and then look up to see the ball rather than making a stroke and watching it the whole way up through the stroke. And hopefully if you can improve on that element of your grip pressure, your eye control that should help you improve with the yips. 2015-10-08

Now I’m going to deal with a putting topic that very few people actually want to deal with themselves and its having the putting yips. And I stress that people don’t want to deal with it themselves because a lot of people don’t actually admit that they’ve got the putting yips. They don’t really feel like it’s a problem that affects them. It’s a problem that happens to other people. It’s a problem that happens to that guy on telly when he missed that short putt. But if people are honest with themselves quite often, their missed putts are going to be down to the yips. Some people are actually yip the ball and it will go in the hole. They’ll make a very nervous jerky action and hook the ball off line; the ball then breaks back in and goes into a hole. Goes into the hole and it’s often a break that the golfer themselves didn’t see effectively. They were aiming straight, pulled the ball offline; the ball then breaks back online and goes in. So they’re yipping the ball more often than not, sometimes it goes in, sometimes it doesn’t. So the yips we’ve got to have a good focus on firstly admitting that we’ve got the yips now we can start to do something about correcting them. Now if you are yipping the putt, there is going to be three main areas I’d like to focus on. The first would be grip pressure. The second would be moving your eyes too much. And the third would just be having a better focus on looking down at the golf ball correctly.

So if we are gripping the club too tightly, then it tends to be quite tense and from three or four feet away from the hole rather than just having the club resting in the fingers softly, we feel like we are really grabbing hold of it. Then the putting stroke becomes too fickly, too nervous, too quick, so grip the club nice and lightly if you are struggling with the yips. Next area I’d like to focus on is going to be having your eyes directly over the top of the golf ball and not letting your eyes follow the ball as you are making your stroke. So we set up nicely to the ball, we make a back and a through swing as we come through to the ball this way. And we make a nice solid action without the head looking up and watching too much as we go ahead and make the stroke, so back and through, eyes directly over the top of the ball looking down the whole time. And the next thing to focus on is maybe just to actually turn the golf ball, so when you put the ball down on the floor you can actually see the symbol, the maker’s name. Have your eyes focused on that point there. Make a nice smooth stroke looking at that point the whole time. Keep your eyes down on the point where that was and then look up to see the ball rather than making a stroke and watching it the whole way up through the stroke. And hopefully if you can improve on that element of your grip pressure, your eye control that should help you improve with the yips.