Putting Yips. The very thought of them brings fear to average golfer and professional alike. Maybe its because the experts can not even agree as to what they are, much less what causes them.
The effects also vary from player to player. Some will feel a jerkiness in their stroke, others will peek at the hole. Still others will do both, either together or on consecutive strokes. So the putting yips are manifested in many ways, and those ways are often considered the cause.
Some will argue the yips are a physical thing resulting from some fictitious nervous condition the player has. If there was some nervous system problem with the golfer, it would most certainly show itself in some other life activity. Golfers who believe this line of thought will try new grips and putters, and God knows what else. And they will keep on yipping.
There are also those who say it is entirely a mental thing. Fear from lack of confidence, or some such nonsense. Those who believe in this theory will have all kinds of remedies from putting practice drills to listening to music while you practice. And they will keep on yipping.
And there are those who will say the putting yips are a combination of the mental lack of confidence and physical nerves. I guess they don’t know which wrong conclusion to go with so they go with both of them. You will see these players practicing with a two thumb grip, with the right hand in a claw grip. They will be easy to spot, just look for the guy yipping on the green wearing headphones.
I have traced a lot of links to see what help there was available for the yippers out there. All I found was that nobody who claimed to be able to help had any idea of what causes the yips in the first place. At best, there was well meaning ways to waste your time on the practice green.
I guess I am amazed at the lack of thought and reason that is evident when it comes to addressing the putting yips phenomenon. In the end, common sense rules out all but one possibility. But I think I am the only one who sees it.
Lets look at the facts. First of all, there is universal agreement that the yips are involuntary. Ask any golfer afflicted and they will certainly agree there is nothing voluntary about it.
Secondly, since the yips are never diagnosed as a part of an actual neurological disorder that is affecting the golfer in doing anything else, there is obviously nothing wrong with the physical condition of the golfer.
Third, is it fear or lack of confidence? What came first, the lack of confidence or the fear? The chicken or the egg. That argument does not even have a foundation to be based on and can be summarily dismissed as nonsense.
So all we are left with for fact is that the yips are an involuntary action not caused by any nervous system disorders. Knowing that, where does the search for the cause begin? What is it when your body does things on its own, involuntarily? It’s called a reflex.
So putting yips are caused by a reflex. But a reflex to what? What are you doing with a putter that invokes this reflex?
There is only one reflex that could be involved in the yips. The human eye has a natural aversion to watching impacting objects. Often times, the reflex is just to look away at the instant of the impact between the objects. Other times you will reflexively blink your eyes at the exact instant of impact. I have coined this the “impact reflex”.
So there can be only one cause for the yips. The yips are caused by a natural reflex concerning how your eyes deal with impacting objects. The Impact Reflex. In the case of putting, the putter head hitting the ball. That reflex is the beginning of the yips.
I will concede at this point that the putting yips do lead to a lack of confidence, and even fear over time. But those are results, not the cause. They compound an already bad situation, but are not the reason you started yipping to begin with.
It is interesting to note that putting is the only shot in any target sport that requires you to be looking at the impact between the implement and the projectile. Probably that is because putting is played like golf.
In every other target game, that obstacle is dealt with through the fundamental approach to the game that the player employs. Fortunately, the fundamentals of other target games can be applied to putting to eliminate the cause of the yips.
You can never cure any disease by working on the symptoms. The putting yips are no different. Target Putting addresses the true cause of the yips and practically forces you to putt better by turning to your advantage the instincts you have been fighting all this time.
