Yippy! No, Not the exclamation.

The Putting Yippy!

At one point a few years ago, my reaction in the photo above would have been my standard reaction to holing a straight 4ft putt.

This is a question at the heart of literally hundred's of thousands of hours research, PhD Dissertations, academic studies, and millions of putting grip changes... 

"How to solve the putting yips"

Well, here is my two-cents worth to add to the literature. Having actually experienced a mild case of "The Yips" myself, and worked through it, I can shed some light on what worked for me at least. But know that there is no magic answer to this question, as its a mental and a perception issue. It's not a technical issue. 

1: It's a technical issue... Well, at least it may have started as one. The yips usually stem from anxiety over missing short putts, and with how seemingly simple a short putt is to execute skill wise, there must be a technical deficiency present for us to be worried about it.

What worked for me was not getting too emotional about the misses and the shakes, and focussing answering the question "what in my stroke is causing me to lose control of the face". I did a heap of work on controlling my start line, with some basic drills, and took confidence in the fact that I knew I was capable of doing it. My favourite thing to do was to hole 100 3ft putts in a row at the end of my practice, before I was allowed to go home. I knew if I could do that, then I could confidently say I was technically competent enough to do it on the course, now I just had to get out of my own way. 

2: Miss some on purpose - Now, this is a rogue suggestion, but it was a turning point for me. I was so anxious about missing short putts, and my hands were so shaky over them, that on the occasion it happened, it destroyed me. What I did in my practice, and EVEN ONCE IN A TOURNAMENT, was intentionally missed some 1/2/3/4ft putts. I realised that I began to fear missing them so much that I wasn't freeing myself up enough to make a god stroke. So I made missing them commonplace. You don't fear what you go through everyday, typically. 

In one tournament, a single day, relatively meaningless pro-am, I had had a rough start and was +3 through 5, and had no chance of winning the event. My hands were still shaky over short putts, even though I had no chance of winning, and I think something in my brain broke. Standing over a 2ft putt on 6, I decided to see if I could get the ball to lip out on the right hand side, and committed to that idea - well, I made the best stroke I'd made on a 2ft putt in months, and the ball dived into the right side of the cup, spun around to the left side, came out, and sat on the front lip. "What a great putt" I thought to myself... I kept this system running all day, and I shot 81, finishing maybe 4th to last in a 30 person field. But after that day, my hands actually stopped shaking over short putts, and I saw my success rate of holing them skyrocket. Despite how big and terible the idea of missing a short putt seemed at the time, I now knew that missing them didn't mean the world would end, and that there was always another round of golf. 

3: Approaching the world limit here, so I'll keep this short. LOWER YOUR EXPECTATIONS! We all have it in our heads that we should hole every putt from 4ft. Well, PGA Tour Players hole around 91% from 3ft, 85% from 4ft, and 79% from 5ft. If they don't hole every putt, why should you?

Make it your goal to hole 50% of your putts inside 5ft - start there. Consider 51% a great day, and 40% an average day. You'll be amazed how quickly you start to see the rate creep up to 70% or more, and how quickly the hands stop shaking when you know it's basically a coin toss as to whether or not it goes in. 

Maybe these were useful tips, or maybe I'm mad. As I said earlier, this is just what has worked well for me, not necessarily whats backed by science. However, there is enough stuff out there that I'm sure I'm not the first person who thought that intentionally missing putts will lead to making more in the future - us golfers are a mad bunch after all.