Control the Flinch

A lot of people have the yips when they putt. But I don't think people realize that they can have the yips (or a flinch) with any golf shot, including full swings. I've been a victim of this, and you must really pay attention to yourself to catch it, because it's very subtle and insidious. It often occurs right at impact or anticipation of impact.

I call this full swing yipping phenomenon "the flinch." Yips usually involve just the hands and small muscles in the forearms, but the flinch can involve muscles in your entire body. I've flinched with my left shoulder. I even flinch with my legs--even to the point of lifting with my legs and spinning out my front foot, and part of me believes that this is left over from my tennis days. In reality, it's just tension that tries to release itself at the ball, and a flinch swing is really the opposite of a smooth swing. The tension can be due to a variety of reasons, including the effect that the golf course's hazards and obstacles have on the psyche (e.g., a long forced carry over a lake, etc.).

In a smooth swing, the small muscles of the hands and forearms don't activate. This means there's no conscious or unconscious attempt to add power to the shot, rotate the forearms, flip the wrists, or any number of other handsy movements. But a smooth swing also means a smooth lower body. The left foot doesn't spin open from its address position; the legs don't try to unconsciously add lift to the shot. It's a smooth, gradually accelerating motion of the lower body that should move passive arms.

There are probably other movements I'm missing. Heck, for all I know I'm probably gritting my teeth, flaring my nostrils, and raising my eyebrows at impact. All are signs of tension and denote a high potential for flinching at the ball and causing crazy mishits.

 

Ironically, a slower, smoother, rotational swing imparts far more energy to the ball than a faster yip swing that uses small muscles and causes mishits. It's like a lot of things in golf--the opposite prevails. The mind must learn that a smooth swing without small, jerky movements of the twitch muscles will give the ball it's best distance and direction.

I believe that part of beating these flinches is to first realize that you're doing it, and this requires an ability to be aware of yourself and body through the swing. If you mishit a shot, ask yourself immediately if you flinched or not. Chances are you probably did. When addressing the ball, remind yourself to relax and not flinch--especially in situations where you fear hitting the ball short or too far wide and into a hazard. Try different grip pressures, grip more in the palm with the left hand (and more in the fingers of the right) or even trusting your setup and not looking at the ball (something like this worked for Hank Haney's driver yips). Thinking of your swing as having perpetual motion (as Shawn Clement teaches) might help reduce flinching at the ball.

She recalls starting to flinch in her swing during her junior year of college, right after coming off of the U.S. Women’s Open. Following that tournament, she first noticed she was flinching through impact, better known to amateur golfers as the ‘yips.’ Instead of taking a step back and figuring out what was causing the flinch, she continued to play through it. She assumed it would solve itself over time. The flinch progressively got worse. It became mentally draining for Henderson, but she refused to stop competing.

Selanee Henderson | Golf Channel

In the latest Golf Illustrated was a good article called Quick Fix for the Yips by Stephen Aumock as he states that this word can cause a chill to go down your spine if they feel this is happening to their putting stoke. As the article states that most golfers don’t realize they have it and if they do they seem helpless in ways to fix it.

I know my son who is a great golfer has had this problem and he has tried everything from going to the long putter and tried different methods to help him to relax. This author attempts to give some suggestion on how to overcome this affliction. He mentions the Yips can happen in all sports, from baseball to basketball so it isn’t all in golf.

Yips and What it Means - Golf

Many amateur golfers flinch at the ball at impact. They have a very free-flowing practice swing, but when they get up over the ball their swing looks completely different. I called this a hit impulse. The hit impulse is the moment you put a ball in front of you, you hit at the ball instead of take a full swing through the ball. A good friend of mine used to call this chopping wood. I don’t think I would consider a hit impulse full-blown yips with your swing, but is a very close cousin.

What are The Golf Swing Yips?

Small spasms or twitching of the muscles in the arms at impact causes an unpredictable clubhead movement, just as you see with the putting yips. When you suffer from the yips, the way your brain and muscles controlling your hands communicates is disrupted somehow, causing you to unintentionally move the club in anticipation of contact. As you would with the putting yips, you need to change the way you perceive the point of impact either mentally or physically.

Try different gripping styles with or without overlapping your fingers and see if this helps. Start by aligning your fingers onto the grip or squeezing the grip with your palms and then wrap your fingers around it for support. This can change the way your brain interprets the signals it receives from your hands. The simplest way to cure the driving yips is to change your preshot routine trigger. For example, one golf pro says that her trigger is to touch her golf bag and it mentally prepares her to swing. Try changing your key thoughts as you swing. These are thoughts you use to improve your swing; such as, keep your head down or make a full follow through. Most people watch the ball as they make contact and think: keep your eyes on the ball. One thing you could do is to start staring at your nose instead of the ball. This requires that you trust the way you set up to the ball and your swing. The benefit to this is that it reduces your anxiety or simply changes the way your brain interprets the swing in hopes to prevent the yips.

Golf Medic | Driver Yips

The technical name for the yips is focal dystonia—and changing where you focus your eyes can help solve the problem. Hansson had him hit balls with his eyes closed so he could focus on a different feel in his release.

How I see it | Hank Haney: Golf Digest

However, Hank eventually developed the bane for his demons. He changed his grip, incorporated a bizarre pre-shot waggle and avoided looking at the ball. You read correctly, he found the ball to be distraction to his swing!

Grouchy Golf Blog

 

 

My Wacky Left Shoulder Hitch

I am occasionally vexed by a hideous hitch in my left shoulder. What happens is that my left shoulder joint sometimes rises slightly upward at address (tension) and increases during the down swing, which exaggerates my shoulder tilt and causes all sorts of crazy shots--fat, pop-ups (especially with the driver), and thin shots. I've noticed it can creep in to my swing when I'm nervous or trying to belt one.

Not sure why it happens but it may be an unconscious effort to lift the ball during the swing.

And I'm not 100% certain how to cure myself other than to be aware of it; it's a sign of tension in my swing and address position.

 

Low Trajectory with the Driver

UPDATE: Can now confirm that this is a MUST, especially with longer irons! Definitely gained yards and height by keeping the head back, but the bend in the right elbow (or keeping the box) needs to be kept as long as possible to prevent hitting fat. Another way to think of keeping the head back is to simply widen the stance, which automatically pre-positions the head behind the ball and more weight to the right side. Also, one of my old habits is to unconsciously try to lift the ball (a yip or flinch), because we've all been told to hit up on the ball with the driver, but this actually will cause thin and fat shots. It's more important to envision swinging level to the ground; pretend you're trying to drive a nail directly in the back off the ball with the driver and woods.

This is something that has plagued me. So I'm intrigued to try some of these strategies to correct it and give me a higher ball flight with my driver. In essence, I think I use too much of an iron swing with my driver; I end up with low pull-hooks, high push-slices, hitting behind the ball (fat), and toe shots. I've noticed that my head will often get ahead of the ball or that I'm fully on the outside of my left foot at impact, and thus the only thing I can do is hit more down and cut across the ball as opposed to sweeping it off the tee with an inside-out motion. I also often try to help the ball into the air using body english and arm motion, and this just makes things worse; the irony is that the ball will get more airborne by concentrating on hitting the back of the ball (sweeping it level with the ground) as opposed to trying to hit up!

I believe that a lot of my problems stem from being too aggressive with shifting to the left leg (again…left over from my S and T days), and that is especially troublesome with the woods. Yes, I think it's true that the weight must shift fully to the left, but for me I think it has been too quick as opposed to a gradual process. Pictures of pro golfers hitting driver at impact shows that their heads are well behind the ball and even over their right leg, while they finish fully on the left. Clearly, I'm not executing a proper weight shift and losing distance as a result.

The golf weight shift from right to left is a definite…but a GRADUAL definite. It's not an instantaneous, violent maneuver as I've thought of it before. As Haney says with regard to weight, one should roll from the inside of the right foot onto the left big toe and finally to the outside of the left foot and heel.

In reality, keeping the head back longer and preventing a rapid weight shift from right to left are nearly synonymous. They both refer to the same thing. And this error is never more glaring than when hitting driver. Get the feel that once you get over the right leg in the backswing that the head stays there while the lower body weight shifts to the left.

Also key is teeing up a little higher when you're trying to achieve a higher trajectory. The height difference will not be that different--maybe a quarter of an inch, but this will help get the ball back in a good position for the sweet spot with a more upward motion. Use with caution, however. Teeing higher requires that the ball be further forward in the stance, which may mean simply widening the stance.

Shallowing influences include positioning the ball further forward, swinging more around the body, and widening the stance.

When your head moves forward during the downswing, your whole swing plane moves ahead. That means you will tend to lose the ball to the right or leave the clubface open through impact.

One day, Lee Trevino was playing with the amateur golfer. Trevino gave only one advice to this golfer. He told him to keep his head back.

This amateur golfer was hitting a strong draw on that day.

[From Impact Position: Keep Your Head Back | Golf Tips & Lessons]

If you feel that you’re shifting to the left in the downswing to early, do some practice swings facing a mirror and watch your head to see if it’s moving left in the initial stages of the downswing. Also, watch yourself load your weight better into the right inste/heel as you hit the top of the backswing.

Another thing you can do is take you ball and as you tee it up, turn the label so it faces to the right. Now, as you go to hit your shots, watch the label. If you shift too much left, you will loose sight of it. The only way to see the label is if you stay behind the ball as the club swings through impact.

A final thing you can do are practice swings “feeling” more weight on your right foot as the club swings through. By feeling more weight on your right, it will stop you from shifting to drastically to the left. Once you get the feeling in practice swings, apply it to your shots.

NOTE: It’s not that I want to weight on the right foot at impact, it’s just a drill to stop the weight from shifting to the left too soon. So, do a bunch of practice swings feeling more weight on your right side into the downswing. Then, apply this new feeling to your shots. After you start hitting your shots higher forget favoring the right leg like this.

[From Stop Hitting The Driver Too Low]

Lift your left heel

At address, lift your left heel. Take a few practice swings with your left heel off the ground during the whole swing.

This will prevent your upper body to move forward on the downswing.

If you stop your head from moving forward, your clubhead speed will increase.

[From Impact Position: Keep Your Head Back | Golf Tips & Lessons]

Lee Trevino had a great tip or swing thought that I use when I want to hit a ball really high (#10 at Lake View requires me to carry a ball pretty high over some trees around an 80° dogleg).

His tip was "you want to feel as if you're head is moving backwards (to the right for a righty) at impact." Lee used the tip to hit a draw, but if you're square it's a good way to keep your upper body back through impact, too. Tee the ball up a bit higher if necessary too, yeah.

[From Trajectory is too low with my Driver]

When a golfer places too much weight on their front foot, it increases the chances of a golfer getting out front of and "stabbing" at the ball, which is likely to yield a low trajectory off the drive. However, by keeping one's weight back and leaving it there until impact position, the weight is more evenly distributed across the swing, which will help make impact with the ball on the way down, therefore increasing the chances of a longer, higher drive. Also, make sure not to swing too quickly and "lunge" at the ball, as this can create a low drive as well.

[From Causes of a Low Drive in Golf | Golf Tips | Golfsmith]

Lots of teachers will tell you to hit it on the upswing with your driver. But if you do it too much, it can cause slice. Some golfers start to hit well when I ask them to sweep the ball instead of trying to hit up on the ball.

...you can focus on the back of the ball instead of just looking at the top of the ball. The clubface contacts with the back of the ball. So you should focus on the back of the ball as well.

Here is a good swing thought. Picture a nail stuck into the back of the ball. When you swing down, I want you to drive the imaginary nail through the ball.

The problem is teeing up higher and placing the driver on the ground at address. For example, let's say that you tee the ball up so that 2/3 of the ball is above the driver head. If you return the driver head to its address position, you will hit a pop-up.So you will have to raise the driver head off the ground at impact. But if you do this, the driver head moves further away from your body and cause heel hits.To fix this and hit it in the middle of your clubface with higher tee height, hover the driver head (off the ground) just behind the ball. I think you will be able to fix your heel hits with this adjustment.

[From Can't Hit the Driver? | Golf Samurai]

 

Unified Grip On All Shots

Invariably, one always comes back to the TOP golf fundamental: the grip.

I just returned from a business trip and went golfing with my old boss. He gave me a putting tip that I think might be applicable to all shots in golf. (His tip had me making a lot more putts right away!) And ironically, this is something about which I once thought often, but it went by the wayside in favor of other swing tweaks and experiments.

Golfers learn early that the grip is very important in putting, because if one hand dominates the other, all sorts of misses can occur (the yips). We're taught to place the hands on the club with palms facing one another, with a reverse overlap grip and the club in the lifeline of the left hand. But when one closes the fingers, it's nearly impossible to keep the palms perfectly square; as a result (without continued attention to this fundamental), the hands can "wander away" from each other ever so slightly, and this distance is enough to introduce the yips: in my case, a right hand that tries to take over.

Golfers, including professionals, fight this tendency to drift away from the fundamentals. You can even see pros adopting all sorts of new grips and long putters to fight off the yips. I'm not so sure any of that is necessary; Phil Mickelson recently threw away the belly putter and returned to his traditional putter, and his putting improved! Maybe one simply needs to refocus on the fundamentals.

In putting, I have a tendency for the left hand grip to drift back to a stronger position like I use on full shots (i.e., the club gets out of my lifeline…out of my palm). And for the right hand, the grip becomes less overlapped (slightly drifts away from the left towards the club head), and this keeps my hands from acting in a more unified manner (really, really critical in putting). Done correctly, the grip feels like both hands have been melted together!

So, I'm starting to wonder if a more unified feel would help ALL SHOTS. I'm now trying to ensure that I pull my right hand up firmly into my left to prevent any gaps from forming with my Vardon grip. Clearly, forms of the overlapped grip (like Tiger and Jack use) are designed to keep the hands from becoming disassociated. I have a tendency to become to right-hand dominant in my golf shots, which occasionally causes my left wrist to cup and open the club face (it's obvious what can happen with putting and chipping). I think one can still have a united feel on all shots using a Vardon (or maybe even 10-finger) grip by ensuring the hands have an overlapped or unified feeling (i.e., feel melted together). Some of this involves equalization of grip pressure between both hands so that there's one pressure. This way, the hands form a single pivot point for the club and the arms.

Any feel of the hands acting separately in the golf swing is not a good thing.

There are no gaps ... everything fits nicely together. The hands are compact and unified. The grip pressure is created by the form of the grip. [From The Right Grip Produces a Solid Swing | GolfLink.com]

The Vardon Grip, which Vardon said best unified the hands for a more consistent swing, is to this day used by the majority of the world's golfers. Vardon was also known for his accuracy, which he allied with considerable power, but it was the latter that his first American audiences admired most.

[From HowStuffWorks "Harry Vardon"]

 

Putting Tips and Yip Cures

I've already posted about lag putting and how I simply avoid looking at the ball to help control distance on long putts (more so as a drill than during play). But in reality, there's more to it than that. After all, one wants to roll it close, so there's always a marriage of distance and line.

I've noticed that if I'm not paying attention, my right hand becomes overly active in all my golf shots--including my putts. This can cause the left wrist to break down and flip. One often hears the analogy that putting is like rolling a ball toward the hole; many pros (like Jackie Burke) favor an active right hand with a passive left hand, while Dave Stockton likes the left hand/wrist and arm leading (with a forward leaning shaft with the left wrist tracking right down the line). This is often called the "forward press." However, a forward press can cause problems depending on the style of putter (see below on putter style) and the lie of the putter on the ground. In other words, pressing too much can cause hitting down on the ball and applying backspin, which will cause the ball to hop at impact and then stop well short of the target. Instead, I focus on keeping my wrists and hands out of the motion, with my arms and club forming a firm Y shape, so that only my shoulder motion transfers energy into the ball. My left wrist is straight (slight forward press) but unmoving, and my right wrist is bent more but still unmoving. The longer the putt, the less grip pressure I use, such that the weight of the club head is utilized to transfer maximum energy into the ball. The shorter the putt, the more grip pressure, because this makes for a more accurate putt that stays on its line.

But as important as the forward press is, it's also crucial to keep the hands unified during the putt (as if the hands were melted together). The closer the palms can be to each other (mirroring each other in a "praying hands" style), the better the putt will be. This is why a reverse-overlap grip with the putter running through the lifeline of the palm is also important. Another way to think of it is that the forearms should be on the same plane, facing each other (i.e., the right forearm should not extend above the left forearm at address) and forming a Y shape. Then, you just rock the shoulders to move the Y back and forth. Sometimes, I tend to let the club wander from that lifeline in my palm, and this can produce too much hand action; the putt should be driven by shoulder motion only.

Also, be careful with the angle of the wrists and position of the ball relative to the head/eyes. One should be looking in at one's hands when in the address position. The ball should SEEM like it's on the inside of the eye line, but if you plum bob using your putter, you'll see that the ball is actually directly below the eyes.

I have to concentrate on NOT moving my lower body and ONLY rocking my shoulders (again, with firm wrists). If I'm not careful, I will move my lower body like in a chip shot. The legs must remain perfectly still, and the upper body should NEVER turn to face the target (even slightly). The best way to do this is to keep the head down until after the putt is away; take practice strokes focusing on keeping the lower body completely still. It's a huge mistake to look up early, as the tendency will be to unconsciously steer the putt instead of relying on the initial line and practiced motion relative to that starting line.

I have to remind myself to get the putter head close to the ball during setup, as this can also affect the spin put on the ball (ideal spin is end-over-end or topspin). Believe it or not, it's easy to slice or hook putts just like full swing shots. It's also easy to apply backspin (if you hit down, the ball will often hop and then stop well short of the hole because it checks up). It's also important for me to slightly raise the heel of the putter off the ground (toe more down), which makes the shaft more vertical and allows for more of a straight-back-and-through stroke.

The style of putter also has an effect on the address position and chosen stroke style. The putter I'm currently using is a Nike OZ-2 blade style putter, with an offset shaft. The offset is designed so that one can address the ball with the hands and eyes directly over the ball with a vertical shaft; too much forward pressing (leaning the shaft forward and locking in the left wrist in too straight a position) causes backspin with this putter. This offset makes it easy to take a neutral stroke--either arcing or straight-back-straight-through.

Finally, it's important for me to hover the putter head ever so slightly before stroking the ball. If I begin the stroke with the putter resting on the ground, I have a tendency to jerk the club either too much outside or inside, whereas hovering it allows for a pure back-and-through roll.

Though I admire the rolling analogy (because I know how to roll a ball with my right hand), I think I putt better--especially on closer putts--if I can take my right hand out of it more. I've tried cross-handed putting and the "eagle claw" putting grip, but I don't really think they help in the long run (many gimmicks like this often seem to help at first). What I'm trying now is to flatten my left wrist (and thus lean the shaft forward).

One caveat to the firms wrists: Don't be afraid to release the right hand to lag long putts closer.

Mr. [Jackie] Burke tells me out on the practice putting green. "Just let the weight of the putter make the swing and you stay the hell out of the way. Whatever speed you go back with, that's the speed you want going forward."

[From Putting Tips From the Master - WSJ.com]

Hold the putter with the top hand with about a 4 pressure (on a scale of 1 to 10) and use the bottom hand to only guide it while holding it with a pressure of about 2. Make the stroke primarily with the top hand. This will prevent the wrist from breaking and also keep the putter in line during the stroke.

[From Best Putting Tips - Golfers Share Most Helpful Advice They've Received]

An amazingly simple tip that will help you get those long putts closer is just to stand taller.

Seem to easy?

[From Avoiding 3 Putts – Stand Tall on Long Putt | Perfect Connection Golf Swing]

The key to rolling a long putt close to the hole, or even knocking in a few of them, is to make a long, flowing stroke. And the best way to do that is to stand taller.

[From Stand tall on long putts: to lag it close from across the green, pretend you're tossing a ball | Golf Digest | Find Articles]