Chipping Yips Fixed! Dan Grieve Coaches a 4 Handicap Golfer

Hi, I'm Dan Grieve and I've teamed with Adidas Golf to help three lucky golf monthly readers

improve their short game. Let's get started. Hi Ben, it's great to have you along

Hi, big fan. Welcome to Womben. Thank you. Now, tell me about your short game then. We've got a really kind of basic ship here off a fairly

tight line. Just tell me about your short game generally, about how you feel for this shot in particular. Yeah, so for handicapper, around the green has always been the worst part of my game consistently

I'd say throughout the time I've had the yips or feel like I've had the yips, particularly

in competition play, get very frozen over the ball, obviously poor technique at some

point over the time and I've got a fear of hitting the ground, there's a lot of baggage

there, duffing, knifing. It's tough isn't it, because you're sure you should have had to enjoy it and it sounds

like you've got some anxiety around it. My score is depending on how many greens I hit, if I hit 15 greens I'm sure it could

score, if I hit 10 greens it goes up. All right, well, I'm just gonna watch it two shots

See what's going on. And then we'll have a chat about it. Okay, but yeah, let's go for this left hand pin here, okay? Okay

There we go, classic. That sort of thing, yeah? Yeah. Okay, one more

That was a bit better. You got your club on the ball there, but actually that actually wasn't that dissimilar

the first one yeah okay you're a good player you've got good hands but you haven't done

happen to work very hard for you okay just on this side so yeah this topic of the yips

this anxiety side of things it's um it's an issue for a lot of golfers and i think you

said it there yourself you've got a bit of a fear of the ground and when you have a fear of the ground that manifests as you're coming down the anxiety kicks in probably about here

you kind of feel it yeah and it becomes a bit involuntary at times and then it's just

there's so much fear about how you're going to strike it that you kind of pull out the shot and the hands get a little bit involuntary in how they're going to move and like you say all

all comes down to you not trusting the ground and essentially just looking at your technique there

it's because as you come down you well firstly you set the wrist quite a lot of address there

okay so you get an awful lot of wrist hinge early and then you kind of drive the handle this way

and you can chip that way but my word you've got to be perfect you've got zero margin for error the

way you're chipping that second one you were good right you've managed to despite no margin for error

but you still managed to hit a good shot, albeit it came off a little bit hot. So you're kind of doing this

You're a little bit on your right side, by the way. We're gonna work on that a little bit. You sort of here, and then you set

and then you kind of pull. So again, I hit that pure, but again, see how hot it comes off the club face

If you're short-sided, I guess it's a bit more of an issue as well. If you wanna get a little bit more spin on the ball

So what I like to do with you just try and make things a little bit friendly because that what it all about Can we get your club working friendlier through the turf so you start to trust the ground and then there a rewiring process that will go on

and you'll start to then get a lot more comfortable and relaxed over it, because you'll know you don't

need to be perfect. See the best players in the world when they chip, so I've hit that one three

inches before just to show you, right now I've hit it three inches before and I've hit it stiff and it came off soft, because I've got my angle of attack nice and shallow for this fringe lie

And I've got the loft and bounce on the club. So I've got this big margin for error

If I was chipping the way you are, and I hit three inches before the ball, you think we know what's going to happen

You'd be chipping again, right? It's not going to go very far. So I want to get your arms a little bit softer

because I can tell they're a bit tight. I want to put the ball a little bit further forward. And I want to get your weight a little bit more on your left side

so you're not tipping back too much. But the big thing for you is we're going to work on a much wider

shallower takeaway, so the club can land on the ground and come through. Okay does that make sense? Yeah. So you set up the baller

Okay ball not too far back. I know it's a bit of a comfort blanket isn't it? Yeah. Stick it back. But we don't want that. Okay. That's good. That's much better

There we go. A bit more left. Try and relax these arms. The grip pressure

Just relax the grip pressure a bit more. Yeah that's more like it. That's kind of about a 4 out of 10

You were about a 9 or a 10 before. Does that feel softer? Yeah. yeah you see how the clubs wanting to swing a little bit on its own now just some grip pressure

yeah okay that's it put the club down so your big thing here i want you to imagine there's a

low coffee table like this yeah and you've got to keep your club head under the table

now you should feel you tell me what which muscles do you think are working a little bit harder to

achieve that or which may be using less um my lower back i can feel lower back yeah do you feel your

wrists are working more or less less yes perfect and you feel like it's probably more left shoulder Yeah

And that's what we want now. So take it away, stop. That's good

And then from there, a little bit of rotation. I want you to actually feel like you're going to hit

the ground first to retrain the brain that you can hit the ground

And then from there, you have a little bit of rotation with the chest through the ball. Okay. Have a practice swing first

Now you hear that noise? Yeah. If you can just get that noise when you chip, you'll change your short game

I do take divots. Yeah. As you can imagine. And when you get a divot

as you're getting really diggy in there so if you have a practice swing and you can hear that noise

and you know you talk about taking it to the course yeah like a good way for people who kind

of like should suffer with the hips if you can use the sense of sound really powerful sense and

that noise you're getting there just do a few more because it's a great noise you can't get enough of that noise there you hear that noise if you can get that noise with the strike of the ball your

short game will be great so focus on the noise more than anything but give me a little bit of width

at the same time. Great It gave me the noise now it wasn fantastic you didn really rotate through

that's we'll get on to that but did that feel a little bit friendlier yeah i felt my knees go then

yeah well there's a bit of anything you're gonna have to rewire yourself okay but every shot you

hit like that will be a shot getting closer to rewiring because you start to trust the ground

yeah okay all right take it back swing so you're wide with left shoulder and then from there open

this time as you hit it keep moving okay have a little bit of rotation with the chest through it

try to soften your arm they're going a bit tight again there wide slide very good again now we're hitting the ground i want you to get a little bit more length

to me just going back okay just feel like you're going to get it a little wider right i'm going to i'm going to help move you this time nice and relaxed here we go i'm going

I'm going to do this together, okay. And you're ready, off we go. Right, how did that feel

Yeah. Unfortunately, I can't move you every time, because if I did, you'd hit it to a couple of inches

But what did you feel? Sort of different there? Just, yeah, more rotation

Yeah. Yeah. He's just taking his hands and arms, sort of prodding it out. My grip gets stronger as I go through the ball

I can feel myself getting tighter on the grip. You've got to accept that for a while. You know, we're trying to totally rewire how you see this

Yeah. But shots like that are going to build your confidence. Every shot you hit like that, you're a shot closer to getting it all

than your confidence back. Okay, here we go. Right, without me now, okay

Go wide and let the club slide and let the chest move. Very good, well done

Trust in the ground. It wasn't quite as free when I moved you, but it was all right

Want me to rotate through to the target more? Soften these arms, Rex

Very, very good. That's a great shot. a bit of spin yeah just flow in now it's not just prodding the arms and leading edge in good

just think width slide turn very good very very good one more you've got to keep breathing you are quite quite anxious haven't you just try and just try

and relax just try and breathe a bit okay okay very very good now if you can get that backswing longer okay we're in business

i felt like i had to lag that to get more because well that's what happens because you're a good good player for handicap right you you're you've got a lot of um sort

of golfing feels in you if you get a little bit short you're going to want to go that way yeah

That makes sense? If you can get longer, you can start letting the club release more

Beautiful. Absolutely top class. That is fantastic. I actually relaxed it on the way back

You did relax a little bit. Felt like it. So that's what you've got to practice. You've got to just really work on getting the club working better through the turf

which is a lot to do with angle of attack, keeping it shallower. A lot to do with relaxing

And a lot to do with that practice swing. Get that noise first. I was going to say, is there anything in pre-shot routine in terms of walking up

Because I walk up to the ball thinking, God, I'm not going to enjoy this

what should I be thinking about? You don't want to master the art of negative thinking, do you? No

No, that's the thing. But equally, it's no good just thinking positive thoughts

You know, it's your technique that's actually ultimately going to do this. I'm a big believer in you're technically good, you're mentally good

So just understand that. Yeah. The more you just work on your technique, you'll get it. But in terms of the, you know, in the meantime

I would be standing up to it and then try and get as externally focused as I possibly can

So I want to get as much into where I want to land the ball, what the first bounce is going to look like and so where's it breaking to go in the hole

because you've got internal focus right which is you've got to work on that on the practice area

but when you play you've got to really see the shot the more you can vividly paint the picture

of what you're trying to do this side the less you should be wrapped up in it this side does that

make sense and that takes as much practice the focus side of it takes as much practice as any

of this stuff yeah but yeah don't live in technical mode you've got to try and see the shot and if

If you can combine a better technique but actually a bit more about what the ball needs to do

I think you'll start to calm down a bit. There's no reason you can't fix yourself for this by the way

Pretty quickly if you can just work on this stuff. Okay. Good stuff

Good. Cheers Dan. Pleasure it. Yeah, short game was in a bad place

Most of the people that know me know it's the worst part of my game. I struggle a lot with confidence

I feel like I've had the yips for quite a while now

So working with Dan has shored up my technique massively. He's widened my margin of error hugely

I went from zero margin for error to now a technique where I can miss hit a shot

and it will still be a lot better than I used to hit it before. Got the confidence now to use more of a lofted shot

And that's given me the confidence now to take that onto the course and hopefully be able to use it in competition

and not feel like I'm gonna get into some bad spots. And if I do get into some bad spots

I've got a technique to get me out of it