Does this situation sound familiar?
You are standing over a chip shot and have great fear of the type of contact you will make. You fear the chunked shot or the bladed shot or maybe even both. You stand there in trepidation of what might become of the chip shot.
You start your club back and next think you know, you have hit a very poor shot. The ball might have only gone 2 yards or maybe it zipped way past the green because you bladed it.
If this sounds familiar, you might have a case of the chipping yips.
It happened to me around 15 years ago. I was out practicing with the golfers on my golf team as I was their coach. I never had fear over chip shots and could save par from just about anywhere around a green. Out of the rough, tight fairway lie or a bunker, it just simply didn’t matter. I would pull the lob wedge and hit a quality shot.
Now for the last 15 years, the thought of hitting a poor chip shot can sometimes dominate the thought process. What exactly causes the yips has been debated in the golf world and the sports psychology world. I will leave that topic to the experts. Here is a post on the causes.
Today, I am going to focus on 3 solutions. I have founds these 3 solutions to work for me over the year and recently I found something that I think just might be the perfect solution for me! See solution #3 for what I believe might be it!
How To Cure Chipping Yips
- Constant Speed Through the Chip
- Use the Bounce
- Use a Split Grip
Solution #1 Constant speed through the chip
One of the main issues of the chunked shot or bladed shot, whether a result of the yips or just poor technique is rapid acceleration or extreme slow down. Whether you are speeding up too much or slowing down too much, if you do either or, you are going to be in trouble with consistent contact.
Instead, keep your flow back and forth through the swing. If you can learn to live with the results and keep yourself patient, you will increase your chances of succeeding. The problem becomes when the anxiety creeps in and the golfer speeds up and quickly accelerates through a short little chip shot.
One way I have done this is to let the left hand be more dominant. Oftentimes, the rapid acceleration that occurs is coming from the right hand wanting to dominate the swing and your mind panicking halfway to the ball. Instead, feel like the left hand is moving back away from the target and then right to the target. Keep it simple like a Steve Stricker or Jason Day like movement with the chipping motion.
One way I have heard others experience success is to close their eyes. This takes the moment of truth (impact) out of the equation and keeps the mind from telling the arms and hands to fire away.
The bottom line is that you should experiment with the feel that is your solution. Here are some feels or things to test out:
- Feel like the left hand is in control
- Keep the motion simple with very little hand action
- Close your eyes
- Keep the handle equal with the clubhead
Solution #2: Use the bounce
The leading edge on a wedge is bad news for the golfer battling the chipping hips. Typically, when the hands are too far forward, the leading edge is activated and exposed to the ground. If the golfer doesn’t hit the ground in the perfect location, the club stubs and leads to poor results.
For years, I chipped with the leading edge and was very good at controlling the low point of the club. Once again, I never feared where the club hit the ground until that one disastrous day!
The solution here is to use the bounce. The bounce is designed to actually allow the golfer to hit up to several inches behind the ball and have the club cut through the grass and still hit a quality shot. If you were using the leading edge and hit 2-3 inches behind the ball, this would lead to disaster. The opposite is true when you are using the bounce on the wedge.
The setup is key when you are using the bounce. You want to keep the handle fairly equal with the clubhead and the golf ball at address. The swing through is to return to this position at impact and keep moving through the shot. It actually is fine for the right hand to actually release early and make the motion as if you were tossing a ball underhand. This keep the bounce working for you and allows the club to work under the ball.
As the fairway lies have become more difficult at many golf courses across the world, the ability to use the bounce and not the leading edge is becoming very important. The length of some of the approaches on the high end golf courses is similar to the length that greens once were. Translation – very little room for error, which is why we need to use the bounce to increase the margin for error.
The tight lies could be the cause of many golfers’ yips as many yips become worse on those tight fairway lies. When the ball is in deeper rough, many golfers will feel more comfortable as there is an actual cushion under the ball and a much larger margin for error.
Using the bounce when chipping (7 Tips)
Solution #3: Use a Split Grip
You might think I am crazy, but you have to give it a shot. Several weeks ago, I was chipping some wiffle balls in my basement and started to mess around with different grips with chipping. My thought process was the many different grips used for putting on the PGA Tour.
You have back handed grips, you have golfers using the claw, you have belly putters, long putters, etc. If speed is not an issue with many chip shots, why do we have to default to a traditional grip when chipping?
So I placed my left hand at the end of the golf club towards my midsection and my right hand right before where the grip ends. So my right hand remained lower than my left hand, but there was a significant gap between my two hands.
I started hitting chips shots like this and found my mind at ease and the consistency was rather impressive. However, my thought process was this might never work on a golf course. So I practiced for the next week in my basement and then took it to my golf simulator set up in my garage and hit some quality chip shots. The next stage was to use it during a round on my golf simulator and I passed that test.
Now I am thinking, can this really work on a golf course? Fortunately, during the month of December the weather was warm enough to play a round of golf. I was anxious to attempt the split grip, chipping motion. Of course I go out and hit the first 8 greens in regulation and on the 9th hole I hit in the bunker. I used my normal grip out of the bunker. I then hit the 10th green in regulation, but leave my 8 iron short on number 11.
Here we go! It was a chip out of medium rough and I needed to carry the ball about 5 yards onto the green and another 7 or so yards of green was present. I used my 60 degree lob wedge and chipped it perfectly and it rolled within two feet of the hole for a tap in par. The next test had been passed.
On the very next hole, I hit a 130 yard wedge shot a bit short on the tight faraway approach area. Can I pull this off from a tight lie. I grabbed the 60 degree lob wedge again, placed it in the middle of my stanced, kept my motion simple and hit it within 1 foot. The rest of the round, I had 2 other opportunities and was successful on 1 out of those 2 for a total of 3 out of 4 scrambling using the split grip.
From here I will continue to practice and have used the following approach.
- Keep your stance simple
- Use 1 of 3 ball positions: back foot, middle of stance, front foot
- Use the bounce on the middle and front foot swings.
- Use a more aggressive swing with the ball on the back foot
I will continue to experiment and would encourage you to give it a shot! What do you have to lose? If you struggle with the chipping yips, you might be willing to give anything a chance at this point!
Alternative Golf Swings: 5 Options
Final Thoughts: Why might golfers fail with the split grip
The bottom line is that much of the chipping yips comes from fear of embarrassment. There are plenty of golfers who can hit 30 great chip shots in a row around a practice green, but as soon as it matters and their friends or competitors are round, the worse comes out.
The golfers unwilling to put themselves out there, might be embarrassed to try this grip. My recommendation if you fall into this camp is to take the following steps to give it a shot.
- Practice around your house with wiffle balls
- Take to your backyard
- Take to the practice green
- Take it to the course
Make sure you build confidence and are willing to be proud of this approach! When you start hitting chip shots within 3 feet, your golf buddies might start asking for help!
Did you know that professional golfers have struggled with the chipping yips. Tiger Woods and Hal Sutton come to mind. Be confident in what works for your game and compare it to the many different putting grips that are used.
Adam Scott won the Masters with a long putter! You can use a split grip on your chips at your local golf course on the weekend! Be proud and hit some great shots! Your mind will be at ease as your head to the course with great confidence that you can hit quality chip shots.
How to practice chipping at home!
My Secret To Golf Improvement
Let’s face it, in order to get really good at golf, we must practice frequently. About three years ago, I made the leap and invested in a golf simulator build for my garage. I went with a SkyTrak Launch Monitor and the TGC software and can now play over 100,000 courses including Augusta, Pebble Beach, Bethpage Black, Whistling Straits. St. Andrews and many other of the top 100 courses in the world.
This golf simulator setup, which is more affordable that you might imagine, has been a game changer. I can now play golf everyday of the year regardless of rain, snow, cold weather or time of day. I can practice or play rounds of golf. I can stand in the 11th fairway at Augusta and with the auto-rewind feature I am able to practice my approach shots from various differences.
It is worth checking out through Rain or Shine Golf as they offer some incredible packages along with financing offers that are difficult to beat.
Some direct links to Rain or Shine Golf for pricing and financing:
Take Action – What You Can Do Today to Get Better
What does this mean for you? I believe in the following recipe to get better:
1 – Improve your motion in the golf swing by identifying a golf instructor. Here are some options:
Here is a list of golf instructors that we have reviewed:
2 – Train to swing faster and improve your swing speed. Here are some options:
Looking to gain more Speed and Distance in your swing. Two Options:
3 – Understand course strategy and work to break through your next barrier. Here is a series on breaking through:
We have provided guides on how to break 100, 90, 80 and 70. Check out more below, if interested.
4 – Practice Frequently
Did you know that I build a golf simulator in my garage and have played over 500 rounds of golf on my SkyTrak system? It has been a game changer and one worth checking out. Here are some of my other posts on golf simulators frequently asked questions:
- Is a Golf Simulator Worth It?
- How to Build a Golf Simulator?
- What is the Best Golf Simulator?
- Golf Simulator Accessories?
- How to Build a Golf Simulator for under $7000
- Top 11 Reasons to Buy a SkyTrak
- How to Build a Golf Simulator for Under $1000
- Why Build A Golf Simulator?
- What Space is Needed?
- Can A Golf Simulator Improve My Game?
- How Much Does A Golf Simulator Cost?
- Don’t Forget to Check out our 15 best golf swings of all time.