Putting Help

[PRO]

Maybe the Yips?

Im not sure if this would be classified as the yips but Im having some problems with my putting stroke.

On putts inside 10 feet and more so inside 5 feet, I have a little "hit" and/or decel through impact. It actually is a "hit" as well as I jab/pop/keep the putter blade open so it doesn't release. I actually feel the putter head open at or right after impact. Im not sure if I do this because Ive been afraid of pulling short putts and over time I have subconsciously developed it or what. This really rears its ugly head under pressure. I was wondering if anyone has any advice on how I can stop doing this. Thanks

[596]

This will sound weird but my putting stroke smoothed out when I didn't wach the putter head go back. I could always see the head move slightly off line and think..."oh, s***...this putts gonna suck". So I figured I'd look at the hole instead of the ball and putter. It worked like a charm in the practice green. I no longer saw the putter go off line and it helped alot. Just practice a bunch watching the hole and not the club/ball. I'm not saying do this on the course, though I do, but just practice this way.

You'll be very surprised at how accurate your distance will be when trying this. You line up your putt the same way you normally do, then look at the hole.....note the distance and swing away. Do not look back down at the ball, keep your eyes on the hole or when needed a point, due to slope and break, where you are aiming not always the hole.

this really helped me loosen up my stroke and it became much more even and smooth.

[MonteScheinblum]

[quote name='PRO' timestamp='1299125698' post='3021619']
Im not sure if this would be classified as the yips but Im having some problems with my putting stroke.

On putts inside 10 feet and more so inside 5 feet, I have a little "hit" and/or decel through impact. It actually is a "hit" as well as I jab/pop/keep the putter blade open so it doesn't release. I actually feel the putter head open at or right after impact. Im not sure if I do this because Ive been afraid of pulling short putts and over time I have subconsciously developed it or what. This really rears its ugly head under pressure. I was wondering if anyone has any advice on how I can stop doing this. Thanks
[/quote]

This sounds like it might be an issue I had and a few of my students had. If you don't "allow" the putter face to open to the line (but square to an inside path) and arc inside on the back stroke, it is pretty much impossible to release the putter coming through.

It happened to me because I worked with Pelz and he had me doing square to square. A year later when my putting was a horrid, I wanted to go back to an arc stroke. I was still keeping it square going back because that is what i had worked on. I didn't have the yips from short, but give me a 30 foot or longer uphill putt...that was a major yip.

[danattherock]

A tip I got from David Orr. Try this...



[b][color="#0000ff"]Bounce the Putter to Locate the Ground[/color][/b]


[color="#008080"]by Geoff Mangum

[/color][size="4"][color="#ff0000"][center]
[b]Geoff Mangum's PuttingZone™ Instruction
[url="http://puttingzone.com/MyTips/puttingzone.com/index.html"]http://www.puttingzone.com[/url]
[email="geoff@puttingzone.com"]geoff@puttingzone.com[/email][/b]
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[/font] [url="http://puttingzone.com/MyTips/bounce.html"]ZipTip: SETUP & STROKE: Bounce the Putter to Locate the Ground[/url]

[font="Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif"]To stabilize your stroke and make sure your putterhead returns to impact in a vertical orientation for a solid roll, set the length of your putting system from pivot to turf by tapping the putterhead lightly at address and keep the pivot stable in your stroke.

***

You've seen Greg Norman gently tapping his putterhead up and down behind the ball just before he pulls the trigger. He says it relaxes him and makes the takeaway smoother. That may well be useful, if you have trouble with a smooth takeaway move. Here's an independent reason for doing this: it tells your body exactly where the ground is! Yes, you can see the ground, but tapping it with the putter communicates to your body more and better perceptions about your setup, so that when you make your stroke, the putterhead glides into impact just above the surface, skimming the tops of the short-mown grass blades. Tap the putter to sharpen up your stroke.

[color="#0000ff"]Some Theory.

[/color]Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer and many other pros have long preached the absolute necessity of keeping your head still during the putting stroke. The usual explanation is that you do this to PREVENT early peeking, which moves the shoulders out of square and throws the stroke off line. Well, there are at least two POSITIVE reasons that are probably more important than that one: keeping your head still aids your visual management of impact between the putterface and the ball by keeping visual attention and focus where you need it and also aids your physical management of impact by keeping your stroke pivot from bobbing up or down, changing the length of your putting system, or twisting out of plane as in peeking.

The point about visual attention and focus is perhaps self-evident but it bears emphasizing that your putting accuracy vitally depends on solid contact with the back of the ball by a putterhead trajectory moving the putter sweetspot through the ball's sweetspot along the start line of the putt with the face surface squarely oriented to this line. If you are looking somewhere other than at the back of the ball when impact is occurring, you seriously diminish your chances of making this happen.

The point about the length of your stroke system ought to sound relatively novel. When you address a putt, the vertical length of the putter is effectively fixed because your grip does not move higher or lower once applied and you should not be changing the lie angle of the putter during the stroke. This means the only thing that can change to alter the length of your system is your body: you can bend lower, stand taller, or let your arms out farther in the stroke, and any of these will change the total length of your system.

An optimal putting stroke is not only one that can be repeated, but one that best promotes sound physics for predictable, controllable, and repeatable performance. An optimum stroke is usually said to be one that is moving pretty level and low through impact, with solid contact and a square face moving on line. The biomechanics that approaches this ideal with the greatest degree of stability is a shoulders-only stroke. But the key to a truly effective and reliable shoulders-only stroke is to make sure that the length of the total system does not vary during the stroke.

[color="#0000ff"]What to Do.

[/color]In assuming the address position, you should NOT hold the putter grip before you have set your eyes. This is putting the cart before the horse, since your head and eye positioning determines how low your arms will hang below the shoulders. If you hold the putter when assuming the address, you will likely hold the putter too high on the grip with the result that you fail to bend over correctly and your eyes are inside the ball with a downward gaze out of your face -- not at all optimal. Set up first, and then grip the putter based on where your arms hang. You wag the putter; not the other way around!

When you take hold of the putter, keep a watch on your elbows. When the arms hang properly, there's not much crook left in the elbows and so there is little chance the arm length will increase. So get your arms hanging ALL THE WAY out of the sockets before taking hold of the putter. There's about one to two inches of excess play here for everyone.

After you have taken hold of the putter, you will probably see that the putter sole is resting, perhaps even pressed, into the ground. This presents a danger of a jerky takeaway, a loss of focus, and a stubbed downstroke.

There are four ways to remedy this. First, your can inhale. This will raise your torso (and head) ever so slightly, and you can let the putter get pulled up as your torso lifts your arms and hands a bit. Again, watch the elbows. If they cave inward, your putter will stay down. A second way is to lift a little of the bend out of your knees. A third way is to straighten up the back a bit, raising the pivot of the putt in your neck area, along with the shoulder sockets. Finally, the fourth way is to BOUNCE the putterhead lightly on the ground and CATCH IT in your hands on the up-bounce. Personally, I like to combine the inhaling and the bouncing-putter catch.

[color="#0000ff"]What Good Is It?

[/color]When you tap the putter and bounce it lightly, it has several beneficial effects. First, you get a definite knowledge of the position of your arms and hands in the setup. This makes your "triangle" a more definite system that you can control better.

Second, you get a knowledge of the location of the bottom of the stroke both as an absolute spot and as a distance from your stroke pivot point in your neck. This helps your arms find their way away and back to impact with better precision and also makes you conscious of not altering the location of your stroke pivot during the putt. Keeping stock of your pivot will practically eliminate unwanted head movement.

Third, you get a little help in knowing the weight of your putter, especially the putterhead. This helps on distance control.

Finally, when you know where the bottom of your stroke system is in relation to the ground, and you plan on avoiding any lengthening of the system during the stroke, you are freed from any concern of stubbing the putt. This makes you more positive on the through-stroke and also has the effect of cutting down on those odd occasions when out of fear you raise the putterhead too much and top the putt! Ugh!

[color="#0000ff"]Make This Part of Your Game.

[/color]On the practice green, or whenever you get ready to putt, stop worrying about peeking ... instead, make a positive effort to keep your system the same length during the stroke. Adopt your setup before taking hold of the putter; hang your arms fully out of the sockets and relax away the excess play in bent elbows; hold the putter lightly and inhale to raise your system a touch, and then play catch the lightly bouncing putter. Even if you choose not to tap the putter this way, make sure your pivot point stays pretty much where it is when you start the stroke until after you have managed the impact with precision. That is the fundamental part, and applies whether your stroke is a shoulders-only move or something else.

© 2001 Geoff Mangum. All rights reserved. Reproduction for non-commercial purposes in unaltered form, with accompanying source credit and URL, is expressly granted. For more tips and information on putting, including a free 10,000+ database of putting lore and the Web's only newsletter on putting (also free), visit Geoff's website at[url="http://puttingzone.com/MyTips/puttingzone.com"]http://www.puttingzone.com[/url], or email him directly at [email="geoff@puttingzone.com"]geoff@puttingzone.com[/email].

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[Kurt in Kalamazoo]

Hello PRO

From your description of your putting "issue" - you may very well be suffering from the yips. I can relate. I suffered with the yips for years - and tried everything to cure them but nothing worked for me - until one day in 2006 when I discovered a simple putting technique that [u]cured my yips[/u].

Yeah, I know - the conventional thinking about the yips is that there is no cure - "If you get'em, you got'em." But I know what I know - and since discovering my technique I have been putting "yip-free" - play to a 7-handicap AND I'm having fun on the greens again!

Now I'm not claiming my technique will cure all golfers who have the yips - but I am confident it can help many golfers cure their yips and to me that's worth sharing. So I not only hope I can help you - but other golfers out there suffering from one of golf's most mysterious and "maddening" putting curses - the "yips."

The yips are a neurological disorder, but they are "triggered" for many golfers by the physical movements of the golfer's hands & arms during the putting stroke. The key to the success of my technique is that the golfer's dominant hand & arm [u]do not move[/u] at all during the putting stroke. And since there is no movement of the dominant hand & arm - there are no movement "signals" going to the brain to trigger the yips.

So here is the simple putting technique I discovered that cured my yips.

After suffering with the yips for years, I decided to try using the long-shafted putter. But this didn't work for me at all, when I first tried using the long-shafted putter I still had the yips. I am right-handed, so it was only natural for me to use the long-shafted putter by holding the end of the putter against my chest with my left hand - and use my right hand (which is my dominant hand) to stroke the putter. But when I tried this, my right hand would still twist and "yip" during the putting stroke. So I experimented and switched hands - using my right hand to simply hold the end of the putter against my chest - and using my left hand to stroke the putter.

[b]THIS SIMPLE CHANGE CURED MY YIPS! [/b]At first I didn't know why this technique worked - and I didn't care. For the first time in years I was able to putt "yip-free." But after analyzing my technique, I'm certain that the key to its success is that my dominant hand & arm [u]do not move[/u] at all during the putting stroke. The long-shafted putter allows me to keep my dominant hand & arm snug to my chest with no movement at all during the putting stroke. Simply put - my technique is to use a long-shafted putter CROSS-HANDED - using your non-dominant hand to stroke the putter - and your dominant hand to hold the end of the putter against your chest.

I just know it works - and I have been in contact with Dr. Charles Adler from the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale, AZ who is heading up the research they are doing on the yips. And I was also able to discuss my technique with Butch Harmon at the PGA Merchandise Show in Orlando.

So if you are suffering with the yips - or know a golfer who has them - please give my technique a try. And if any of you have a connection to any professional golfers who are suffering with putting "issues" - (like Vijah Singh, Sergio Garcia or Peter O'Malley), please make them aware of my technique - and try using a long-shafted putter CROSS-HANDED. They have nothing to lose to try it - and everything to gain.

So to you "PRO" - give my technique a try and I hope it's as effective for you as it has been for me.

Take care and play well.

Kurt in Kalamazoo

[Dazza62]

I too have the inside 5 feet jitters. David Stockten has a great tip.
Dont HIT the ball you should roll the ball. Since I have taken that HIT thought out of my stroke I have improved no end. THINK ROLL it helps

[PRO]

Thanks for all the tips. Im really not positive what the problem is but I think the root of it is in my stroke, not my mind. Ive struggled with pulling putts for a long time but this "yip" has only recently shown up. Im gonna try letting the putter open more on the backstroke and see if that helps things. If not then maybe it is in my head.

Kurt in Kalamazoo...thanks for your tip but I dont think this is for me. My dominant and FEEL hand is my right hand. If I take this out of the stroke then my distance control will be lost. I might be able to start the ball online but won't make anything cause the speed wont match the line. I actually putted cross handed a long long time ago and this was the problem, terrible distance control. Ive actually thought about putting cross handed inside 10 feet and normal everywhere else. I honestly think I would go to the claw before taking my right hand out of the stroke. Thanks again.

[atlanta golfer]

I've had a bit of this in the past .... not horrible but definitely a bit tentative which can cost a couple of missed putts per round. What has helped me a lot are two things .... one is a slightly heavier putter head, say 10 or 20 grams more than "standard", which steadies everything out on the shorter putts, and the other is to remember to accelerate slightly going into the ball, using a shorter backstroke of course. Oh, one other thing..... you just can't care so much about making or missing, the object is to make a good putt, knowing that most (not all) of them will go in.