Does hitting produce the yips?

Saw this youtube clip mentioned on another forum to explain why Tiger Woods’ current swing is not beneficial to his game. But it also contained an interesting “theory” on why Hogan, Trevino and now Tiger are putting badly.

Watch and cringe:

youtube.com/watch?v=0OD52PB2 … re=related

JOKE…When did Trevino have the “yips” is what I would ask them. Trevino is sill alive and is very open to questions about his career. Never once heard hm ever say anything about the yips. Or any of the claimed greats for that matter. Yips are an uncontrollable shaking or twitch that effects delicate strokes like putting. Having a stretch of poor putting and/or getting older with deteriorating vision, etc is NOT the yips. Tiger does NOT have the yips just because he looks to be missing more short putts now. Unless tiger comes forward and says his forearms are shaking over a putt, It is simply mental for Tiger.

It’s a reasonable question… why did some of the greatest strikers struggle on the greens? Hogan, Knudson, Snead…

I would propose this question first…

If the clubs themselves get shorter, stiffer, heavier in both dead weight and swing weight as you get closer to the hole… why does your caddy hand you a light, upright, whippy shafted putter that is nothing like any other club in your bag?

All self admitted ball beaters who put emphasis on ballstriking and didn’t like practicing putting. Moe Norman was same way. Are they going to say he had the yips next?

Tiger is a perfect study in this. For his whole childhood and early career he was a putting machine. He said his father didn’t let him even have clubs until he mastered putting and I remember one time he said he enjoyed practicing putting. I am sure he spent a ton of time on the greens judging by this info. Now he seems to be putting ALL his time in ballstriking and/or position golf. His putting has suffered. Does that sound like the yips?

I will admit though I watched this video and it did raise a tiny bit of concern as I could see what they were saying. I put in a long range session last week and I was relaxing on couch that evening and noticed my forearms were burning a bit. I could see hitting a careers worth of balls for typical pro would have its toll on forearms (along with every other part of body).

Maybe we should all just scrap 100 years of past golf knowledge and just go “Ballistic” single-plane like they suggest.

…but if what they are saying is true…then Moe was their perfect swinger…and he was not known for his putting.

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I must say, making a comparison here of spine angle from these two stills is beyond absurd. The camera angle is nearly 45 degrees rotated toward the target.

I’m disappointed that someone would put this out on the web as any kind of serious analysis.

I completely disagree with what he is saying on every topic he presented.

The problem with “hitters” putting bad is that they need to also be hitting their putts. Many hitters try to “swing” on the greens, while hitting from the fairway. This has nothing to do with muscular strength in the forearms.

If your putting technique is correct and your putter is set up correctly and in tune with your ball striking, you won’t have trouble putting as long as you have good pace.

I’m thinking everyone has a weakest part of their game and it’s easy to become known as a bad putter if ball striking puts you on the leaderboard and you miss the occasional 2-3 footer on Sunday. Mix those expectations of a miss from the media and crowd with the frustration of not being able to capitalise on such good iron play and there’s a recipe for poor putting. It’s too much of a confidence game.

This is something I’ve given a lot of thought to recently. I’ve always been an outstanding putter. 2 years ago, I would often break 90 with less than 8 greens hit in a round, and putt totals regularly in the mid-high 20’s. I have always had the ability to stare down a 10 footer and just KNOW it’s going in. In November, when my high school season ended, I decided I would give up playing for a while and spend all my time on the range systematically rebuilding my golf swing. I haven’t played 18 holes of competitive golf since.

I have made good progress, especially since starting to work with Lag 5 weeks ago. I am now transitioning back into playing more than practicing. This week I’ve gotten a minimum of 12-13 holes a day in after school. I noticed when I first started back to playing instead of only beating balls and then playing 2 or 3 holes before dark, my putting was nowhere near where it was. I was missing 3 footers instead of confidently drainging 8-10 footers all day. I began to wonder whether it was a lack of putting practice or excessive range work that was to blame for my putting. I can now say I’m starting to get the flatstick back, just from playing.

I am a big believer that the best putters are the ones with the most intuitive strokes and routines that just react to the target. Once I pick a line, I don’t allow myself to think of stroke mechanics, distance control, etc. I do everything I can to make it like throwing a ball to the cup. I have realized that I maximize my putting potential for any given time period by playing a lot. Not just on the course, but getting into realistic situations and trying to make putts as if I were on a course. For as long as I can remember, my dad and I have played “up and down” games on the practice area where we take turns picking short game shots and play 9 or 18 holes of match play. This game, especially when there’s something riding on it, accurately simulates hitting pressure putts for me.

When I spend too much time on the range and away from the course, my putting suffers. I tend to over-analyze my misses if I’ve been working on my swing. I start thinking along the lines of “there is a black & white answer in the full swing when I make a mistake, so let’s find it for the putter.” When I’m putting well, I dont care what the arc of my stroke looks like, I just care about making good strokes and holing putts. At the same time, when I practice on the putting green for any length of time, I will invariably lose my stroke and my confidence. I will start trying to figure out what I did wrong on putts that don’t drop, although as we all know a perfect stroke can fail to go in, making this a flawed strategy. I think that too much time on the practice green fails to breed confidence and only makes you more prone to mechanical thoughts.

For instance, the best player on my high school team is a really inconsistent putter, and he feels that is the area that needs most improvement. So naturally, he has been on the putting green every single day for an hour or more, doing clock drills, distance control drills, etc. I really don’t believe there is any chance this will lead to lasting improvement. I have found that at least for me, I putt well when I make it a natural process that is controlled by the subconcious.

I think that part of the reason people like Hogan struggled on the green sat times are that to develop good full swings through trial and error that are not only ingrained but mechanically sound, you have to be a logical and analytical thinker. These types of people ( I consider myself to be one) are likely to at some point over-analyze the act of putting. In contrast, those who are excellent putters, even if their full swing is well ingrained, are less likely in my obseveration to have great full swings form a mechanical standpoint. They are more of the type who will figure it out in their own unique way and pay little attention to mechancial knowledge about the golf swing. Surely there are exceptions to this rule, but I believe this is generally acurate. For instance, I’ve had the opportunity to follow Stan Utley at a tour event before, and I consider him to be a model of great putting. His full swing, though, for those who’ve seen it, at least around the time I did (2009), is not the most graceful move out there, and violates many of the mechanical “truths” about the ideal golf swing.