Have you ever played yip golf? What is yip golf? Yip golf is a term I made up which refers to muscle flinches and muscular contractions that happen in several areas of your golf game besides putting.
Casting a club from the top of the swing is a yip, its an involuntary action that happens because the golfers mind thinks its supposed to in order to help the ball be struck better. Wrong image, wrong result. Hitting a fat shot from 30 yards off the green with a sand wedge is the same flinch and improper use of the hands at the wrong time. Sculling the ball over the green when chipping is again a yip and the improper sequence of motion. The forcing of the club into the ball with the hand force and wrist force is again the culprit for the undesired scull. Missing a short putt left or right is most often a form of a yip in that any grip pressure with either hand will result in a change of the putters face angle and lose the desired direction.
The basics of golf confidence will help everyone with yips, regardless of where they show up. Understand that confidence will develop in all of these areas once the mechanical understanding takes place. What is the common denominator of all of these yips? Grip pressure at the wrong time. Many instructors and books tell you to soften your hands when you address the golf ball. How many tell you to soften them at impact? Thats the mechanical key. If your hands are soft during the takeaway but tighten up on the downswing with a desire to hit the ball harder, straighter, or up in the air, youre done and have changed the inertia (natural path set in motion) of the club which causes undesirable results. Hence, start off with chipping and feel the hands actually soften up through impact and the club will work for you. As you experience success with this mechanic, you will be gaining a trust which is one of the basics of golf confidence.
This is a good example of where mechanics can help the mental game. However, realize that the mental game can help the mechanics. Relaxation, stress tolerance, and focus are all part of the mental game that will help with the mechanics we are discussing here. Hence, take a deep breath before every attempt at the soft hands through impact. Then tell yourself that it does not really matter in the big scheme of things (how important is golf compared to being alive?), this will help tolerate some self induced stress. Lastly, focus on the one directive during impact, softening the hands. Repeatedly go through these three mental techniques, blend them with the mechanics, and watch your short game start to improve. As your short shots improve with this simple integration of mechanics and the basics of golf confidence, you will be on your way to improved longer shots and will be moving further and further away from yip golf.