Graham DeLaet Chipping Yips

[rockford35]

I feel like chipping yips is a fairly new phenomenon. Don't remember hearing about them 10-20 years ago.

 

Here's to hoping GD gets it worked out.

 

This made me think of this article with this excerpt:

 

In 1979, Jack Nicklaus finished a lowly 79th on the PGA Tour money list. He hadn't won a tournament in a year and a half, his driver was bleeding yards and his short game was so shaky that one revered teacher compared it to that of “an eight- or 10-handicapper.”

 

That might have been a generous characterization.

 

“I started almost putting the ball around bunkers I was so bad,” Nicklaus recalled the other day.

 

Big Jack had the chipping yips, or, if not, a close relative. Desperate, he turned to his old pal Phil Rodgers, a brash San Diegan who never lived up to his much-hyped potential as a player (five wins, no majors) but who thrived as a swing Yoda to the stars. Over two weeks in the run-up to the 1980 Masters, Nicklaus and Rodgers hunkered down at Jack’s compound in North Palm Beach, Fla., to reengineer Nicklaus’s short game. They talked mechanics. Experimented with swing aids. Chipped ball after ball onto Jack’s backyard practice green.

 

http://www.golf.com/tour-and-news/tiger-woods-like-jack-nicklaus-can-have-his-yips-cured

 

I think this happens to everyone at some point.

 

R35

[playa]

Anxiety is part of golf on any type of shot. It happens every round if the shot has a challenge that makes you uncomfortable. It's something a good player knows how to deal with. For DeLaet to have an extreme case over chips and pitches means to me that he has lost his ability to deal with it.

 

I don't think this is yips. I've had yips with the putter and yips can occur without any anxiety. Yips occur mid-stroke... out of the blue... with no warning. Yips can cause anxiety, but anxiety doesn't cause yips. I think there is something wrong in his setup or alignment that he can't resolve comfortably. Something like those times you stand over a shot and just can't get comfortable with it. You know something is wrong but nothing you do to get comfortable feels right.

 

I think that problem is always related to alignment. He'll figure it out.

I know exactlt what youre talking about. Everybody has that hole that just doesnt fit the eye standing on the tee. No matter how well you are playing you just cant get confortable standing over the ball. But I dont think this sounds applicable to Deleat. His issue sounds deeper. If a player has anxiety chipping off the perfect lies they get on tour courses, something is very wrong. For a tour player it could be terminal. At least with putting there are different ways to do things eg left hand low, claw, opposite hand, cheaters putter etc. With chips you have to hold the club pretty much the same way. It would be impossible to re learn something as complex as chipping to a level to stand up on tour. And as a long time yippy chipper I can say from experience that once youve got em, you never completely get rid of em. I have become a good chipper from hard work and learning correct technique, but there is always a stab or flub or chilly dip or blade across the green just waiting to come out of nowhere and bite me.

[TeeBonZ]

I struggled with the chip yips for years. This is not a fun thing. I finally overcame them by quitting golf.

[Mudguard]

I struggled with the chip yips for years. This is not a fun thing. I finally overcame them by quitting golf.

Pretty close to where I'm at. Someone mentioned anxiety, I don't actually get anxious, I stand over it thinking I'm awesome and it just goes, bleugh. It started with my putting, abated with the belly putter, then the claw grip. Sadly there aren't too many solutions to chipping.

My solution is professional help for hitting more greens.

[playa]

I struggled with the chip yips for years. This is not a fun thing. I finally overcame them by quitting golf.

Pretty close to where I'm at. Someone mentioned anxiety, I don't actually get anxious, I stand over it thinking I'm awesome and it just goes, bleugh. It started with my putting, abated with the belly putter, then the claw grip. Sadly there aren't too many solutions to chipping.

My solution is professional help for hitting more greens.

The old Phil hinge and hold videos might be of some help. Those vids are what turned me into a good chipper, but not sure they will cure yips.

[Roadking2003]

I feel like chipping yips is a fairly new phenomenon. Don't remember hearing about them 10-20 years ago.

 

Here's to hoping GD gets it worked out.

 

This made me think of this article with this excerpt:

 

In 1979, Jack Nicklaus finished a lowly 79th on the PGA Tour money list. He hadn't won a tournament in a year and a half, his driver was bleeding yards and his short game was so shaky that one revered teacher compared it to that of “an eight- or 10-handicapper.”

 

That might have been a generous characterization.

 

“I started almost putting the ball around bunkers I was so bad,” Nicklaus recalled the other day.

 

Big Jack had the chipping yips, or, if not, a close relative. Desperate, he turned to his old pal Phil Rodgers, a brash San Diegan who never lived up to his much-hyped potential as a player (five wins, no majors) but who thrived as a swing Yoda to the stars. Over two weeks in the run-up to the 1980 Masters, Nicklaus and Rodgers hunkered down at Jack’s compound in North Palm Beach, Fla., to reengineer Nicklaus’s short game. They talked mechanics. Experimented with swing aids. Chipped ball after ball onto Jack’s backyard practice green.

 

http://www.golf.com/tour-and-news/tiger-woods-like-jack-nicklaus-can-have-his-yips-cured

 

I think this happens to everyone at some point.

 

R35

 

It happens to me quite a lot. :stink:

[Roadking2003]

I struggled with the chip yips for years. This is not a fun thing. I finally overcame them by quitting golf.

 

I think that is the only way Tiger will get rid of his chipping yips. It appears to be working as of now.

[Man_O_War]

Tiger didn't /doesn't have the yips either, must be an American thing but everybody who is struggling with chipping doesn't have the yips

 

When you see real yips it is a spasmic movement

 

Brad faxon had bad fear and anxiety over hitting the driver for several years on tour, so he used a 3 wood. Doesn't mean he has the driving yips

 

If you want to see real pitching yips see Tim Clark

 

they call everything yips..but you are very right.. the yips is built through anxiety then translates into a physical expression... spasmic, uncontrolled muscle twitches..i should know LOL..

 

Tiger didn't yip anything..he was duffing and shanking...that's not the yips.. Putting yips are more common on tour....the tour players know that feeling well.

[AZBearcat]

I agree. Miss the beard

[Roadking2003]

Tiger didn't yip anything..he was duffing and shanking...that's not the yips..

 

please explain. Looked like yips to me. some fat, some thin. yippy!

[PZero]

Is Jules still his caddy?

[knock it close]

Is Jules still his caddy?

Yup last I heard.

[EKELLY]

Tiger didn't /doesn't have the yips either, must be an American thing but everybody who is struggling with chipping doesn't have the yips

 

When you see real yips it is a spasmic movement

 

Brad faxon had bad fear and anxiety over hitting the driver for several years on tour, so he used a 3 wood. Doesn't mean he has the driving yips

 

If you want to see real pitching yips see Tim Clark

Obviously you missed the end of his last attempt to come back. That was the yips Bro.........The best short game ever was chunking, chili-dipping, and flat out skulling shots left and right..........If that's not the yips, what is it?......Or was it?.......LOL

[starsail85]

Tiger didn't /doesn't have the yips either, must be an American thing but everybody who is struggling with chipping doesn't have the yips

 

When you see real yips it is a spasmic movement

 

Brad faxon had bad fear and anxiety over hitting the driver for several years on tour, so he used a 3 wood. Doesn't mean he has the driving yips

 

If you want to see real pitching yips see Tim Clark

Obviously you missed the end of his last attempt to come back. That was the yips Bro.........The best short game ever was chunking, chili-dipping, and flat out skulling shots left and right..........If that's not the yips, what is it?......Or was it?.......LOL

 

I didn't see any flinch or yip or sudden stall. What you are dealing with is somebody who seriously altered their technique in 2011 to a much shorter left arm club combined radius and tried to go back to a different technique which had a much different radius. What showed up in tournament was conflict over the dominant pattern.

 

The term yip has become a common place excuse for the 99% of the golfing population who have no idea about the game or how to play it

 

Tiger doesn't have the yips, his chipping was just terrible

[Mwscgolf]

Gotta love the honesty. At least he's not using the tired expression "I feel like I'm really close"....

[MadGolfer76]

Yips...or just stabbing it into the ground too much and compensating with thins?

 

Is there really a difference? Serious question.

[Bingo1976]

Yips...or just stabbing it into the ground too much and compensating with thins?

 

Is there really a difference? Serious question.

 

The difference is Tiger can't have the Yips.

[starsail85]

So every amateur who chunks an thins occasionally has the yips?

[vleisman]

Yips...or just stabbing it into the ground too much and compensating with thins?

 

Is there really a difference? Serious question.

 

I would call that stage 1 that could lead one down the road to yips, long way to go. When he's double-hitting or fresh-airing (chunking them so that the ball doesn't move) then it's safe to say it's the yips. That's when you start trying left-below-right, split hand grip, one-arm chipping, eyes closed, etc. etc. ad nauseam . Not unrealistic to double-hit a simple little pitch back over your shoulder. Fresh-air chunks are probably the most embarrassing, closely followed in a dead heat between the double-hit and the little frog-jump where the ball moves an inch or so. At least the knifed chip moves a fair distance and could hit the flag if you're lucky...

 

Bags of fun when you teach golf for a living and the pupil hands you the wedge and asks you to demonstrate :)

[ElJefe26]

It's quite amusing to read the debate about whether DeLaet has the yips, particularly those that are asserting that he does not have the yips. Some are trying to define the yips as excluding certain types of anxieties, as though the yips appears in the DSM of Mental Disorders with a bullet point list of inclusive and exclusive symptoms. He's got the yips!! There is no technical definition of them, it's a general anxiety issue that many golfers have at times. Just look at the name we've given to try to describe this amorphous condition--YIPS. Seriously? To suggest that one anxiety is the yips, yet another is not, comes across as a difference without a distinction, and way overthinking the problem.

[Roadking2003]

So every amateur who chunks an thins occasionally has the yips?

 

No. They have no talent. Tiger has uber talent.

[KMeloney]

So, what's the definition of the yips?

[dbleag]

I struggled with the chip yips for years. This is not a fun thing. I finally overcame them by quitting golf.

 

I had a friend who had "stress anxiety with the short shots" and ended up chipping one-handed with his left hand/arm. It was pretty impressive how well he did.

 

He putted left hand low with a big Nicklaus MacGregor Response putter and was pretty good with that also.