For those of you who suffer from the yips, it doesn’t seem to matter what "cure" you try, because nothing works. What you have to realize is that the yips is a mental issue, not a swing fault. Your brain is telling your wrists to twitch before impact, because your brain is not 100% sure of the putt you're about to make. What you need to do is re-boot your brain thinking process when it comes to putting. Forget all the missed short putts, and lost strokes are start the learning process over again. A great way to do this is to forget about the hole entirely.

Lets face it the hole is a small target, too small, and you need to think BIG. Work on your basic putting setup and alignment to a range bucket or towel from 10 feet away. Your successes will improve… and so will your confidence in your putting. With this approach, you can start trusting your putting stroke again and your yips should go away. Once you become more confident with your fundamentals, and you have successfully re-booted your putting stroke using the larger target… slowly work your way down to the hole again.

The number one reason why amateurs miss short putts is deceleration. This symptom can creep up in many parts of your game, especially with chipping and putting. If you notice yourself stubbing chips and putts, or have trouble making all your short putts, I would bet you’re decelerating into impact.

I cannot stress enough the importance of acceleration when putting - not doing so can be deadly. Ensuring you accelerate into impact will help your short game tremendously. You will longer have to worry about short putts or the occasional stub, because if you follow-through, the ball has nowhere to go but forward.  On the other hand, you have to be careful.  If you start over-thinking things and try to steer your shots, the deceleration bug can creep in, and you’re game will suffer accordingly. Deceleration in many cases leads to the dreaded yips.

I use this simple drill to encourage an accelerating stroke on the putting green. Simply putt to a hole about 5-10 feet away, but place a headcover / ball / range bucket in the way of your backswing to keep it short. This forces you to accelerate into the ball and the results are immediate.

I would recommend everyone try this drill, because sometime spotting that you are decelerating is difficult. Don’t miss it!

In putting, there are very few similarities from one player to the next. This is because putting is all about ‘feel’. Some players have good feel around the greens; others don’t. For those who have trouble, being able to see the line of the putt, the subtle breaks and path towards the hole can be very beneficial.  Instead of having to imagine the line, you can now see the line.

To help provide this visual feedback, try putting in the early morning dew. It is a great way to develop a visual sense of how a putt breaks. With some practice you can begin to develop a better sense of the ‘feel’ of each putt. After hitting some putts in the dew and taking a look at the break trails of each, a 25 foot putt never looked so easy.

Give it a try!

I was teaching a student last week, and was asked this question. My answer was simple – “there is no perfect putting grip”. As long you incorporate some basic grip fundamentals, your putting grip can be as unique as your swing. This fact is proven on tour, where you will see a multitude of different grips being employed.

A forward press is a swing technique many golfers use to initiate there stroke. Most commonly seen in chipping and putting, it’s a simple movement of the hands towards the target before a stroke starts. The question is, is this a good or bad habit?

 

Quite often I see players who suffer from unwanted body movements throughout their putting stroke. This fault leads to missed putts of all distances, often caused by the face angle of the putter being either open or closed at impact.

We all know golf is very much a mental game. The brain has a profound effect on the results of each and every one of our shots. A fine example is to look more closely at a common problem like the yips. If you don't already know, the yips are involuntary wrist and arm twitches right before impact, which can affect anything from chipping to those three footers impossible.

Having troubles on the dance floor? It’s time to check your putting fundamentals once again. It’s a sad but true fact that approximately 90% of all putting faults occur because of poor fundamentals. So the next time you’re fed up with your putter – instead of going out to buy a new one, learn to implement proper putting fundamentals.

The most common putting faults can easily be corrected by the station I have set up in the picture to the right. Start by aligning a flagstick parallel to your target line. Next, address the ball with the flagstick against your feet. Ensure your shoulders, knees, hips and eyes are square to your target line. A great way to check this is to place your putter across your chest, knees and hips – is it parallel to the flagstick? If so, you’re set – if not, you have some work to do.

Putting is the most personalized part of the golf game; it is all about individuality, feel and confidence. That being said, putting styles differ quite a lot from player to player, especially on tour. Because of this, there are many things about putting that are not worth teaching. Take the putting grip for example – when it comes to putting, I’ve seen all sorts of grips work… on tour for example, you will find players who putt using left hand low, reverse overlap or even the claw. That being said, there are two fundamental of putting that needs to be used by all golfers.