Chipping yips

Where this can come from

These are the causes this symptom resolves to, in the order they turn up most often. That order is not a diagnosis and it is not your answer: two of them can produce a shot that looks identical from behind. Each has a fix you can read now, whether or not you answer anything.

1. 1

   Deceleration into impact

   The club slows down before it reaches the ball, almost always after a backswing longer than the shot required. Speed disappears at the only moment it matters, and the bottom of the arc becomes unpredictable, which is why decelerating produces both the chunk and the blade.

   Read the fix

2. 2

   Grip pressure too tight

   Holding the club hard enough to tense the hands and forearms makes the delivered face angle less repeatable and shortens the motion. It is the most common physical expression of pressure, which is why the same golfer strikes it well on the range and loses the face on the first tee.

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3. 3

   No repeatable setup or routine

   Aim, ball position, stance width and grip get rebuilt slightly differently on every shot, so face angle, low point and strike location all vary with them. Address is the reference the whole swing is measured from, and a reference that moves explains misses that seem to have no pattern.

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4. 4

   Flipping or scooping through impact

   The lead wrist breaks down so the clubhead passes the hands before the ball and the shaft leans backward at contact. Loft is added, the low point moves back, and the shot comes out high, weak and short of what the club should carry.

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5. 5

   Low point that does not repeat

   The bottom of the arc lands in a different place relative to the ball on each swing, so fat and thin alternate instead of one miss repeating. Treating it as two faults and correcting each in turn is what keeps the golfer oscillating between them.

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Related symptoms

These are not here because they sound similar. Each one can come from a cause on the list above, which is why fixing one sometimes quietly fixes another. The closest matches are first.

• Freezing up and quitting on bunker shotsThe moment you step into a bunker the tension builds and the swing slows or quits in the sand, so every bunker shot is a lottery and you have started aiming away from flags just to keep out of the sand.Shares deceleration into impact
• I play much worse when it countsYour scores in competitions, matches and any round with something riding on it are far worse than your casual scores, and a good score coming into view only makes it worse.Shares grip pressure too tight
• I putt well in practice and badly on the coursePutts that drop on the practice green start missing once you are on the course, and the misses get worse when the putt actually matters.Shares grip pressure too tight
• No distance control on partial swingsAnything less than a full swing finishes well short or well long of the number, so the in-between wedge yardages are the least predictable shots you have.Shares deceleration into impact
• I almost never get up and downAfter a missed green, the chip or pitch rarely finishes close enough to one-putt, so the hole costs a shot almost every time.Shares deceleration into impact
• Chips and pitches always come up shortChips and pitches keep finishing in front of the hole, either floating up soft and dropping dead or running out of pace on the fringe, even when the strike does not feel badly wrong.Shares deceleration into impact

What this rests on

• Search for the Perfect Swing: The Proven Scientific Approach to Fundamentally Improving Your GameAlastair Cochran and John Stobbs, for the Golf Society of Great Britain, 2005 reissue, originally 1968
• 40+ TrackMan Parameters ExplainedTrackMan, accessed 2026
• The Physics of GolfTheodore P. Jorgensen, University of Nebraska, 1999, second edition; Springer reprint 2013