The Myth: Daredevils Are Too Bold to Get the Yips
In golf, the yips refers to involuntary muscle contractions, typically in the hands and wrists, that hijack short putts and delicate chip shots. Your brain sends the command. Your hands refuse to comply. A three-foot putt becomes terrifying.
The Daredevil (ESRA) athlete, characterized by reactive processing and autonomous performance style, supposedly has natural immunity to this condition. After all, these athletes thrive on instinct and improvisation. They make split-second decisions without overthinking. The yips are a problem of paralysis, of too much conscious thought contaminating automatic movement. How could someone who lives in the moment succumb to something so mechanical?
This myth is precisely backwards. In this article, you'll learn the exact protocol to overcome the yips by understanding why your specific psychological profile makes you vulnerable in ways that differ from other golfers, and what targeted interventions actually work.
- Physical symptom: Involuntary jerking, freezing, or twitching during putting stroke or short chips
- Mental symptom: Sudden awareness of your hands as separate from your intentions, conscious monitoring of movements that should be automatic
- Performance symptom: Dramatic decline in short-game statistics despite consistent long-game performance, avoidance of certain shot types
The Reality for Daredevil Athletes
The Daredevil's vulnerability to the yips stems directly from their reactive cognitive approach. These athletes process challenges through bodily sensation and real-time adaptation. They don't pre-plan movements in granular detail. They feel their way through performance.
This works beautifully for dynamic, flowing movements. A full swing has momentum, rhythm, continuous feedback. But putting strips away everything the reactive processor relies on. The movement is small. The feedback is minimal. The consequence is massive.
Primary Pillar: Cognitive Approach: Reactive
Reactive processors excel when there's sufficient kinesthetic information flowing through the movement. A driver swing generates extensive proprioceptive feedback: rotation, weight shift, arm extension, club release. The reactive athlete's nervous system has abundant data to process and respond to.
Putting provides almost nothing. The stroke is measured in inches. The muscle groups involved are small. The sensory feedback is subtle. When the reactive processor's system doesn't receive adequate movement data, it starts searching. This searching creates conscious attention on the hands. Conscious attention on automatic movements is the neurological definition of the yips.
Compounding this, the Daredevil's extrinsic motivation amplifies pressure on short putts. These athletes derive energy from external validation, from results that others recognize. Missing a three-footer in front of playing partners or spectators activates their reward system in reverse. The external consequence becomes magnified. Pressure spikes. The searching intensifies.
How Does the Yips Manifest for Daredevils? (Real Scenarios)
Understanding how this condition appears in actual golf situations helps you recognize the pattern before it becomes entrenched.
During Practice
A Daredevil golfer drains putts effortlessly during casual practice. No consequence, no audience, no problem. Then a playing partner suggests a putting contest. Stakes are introduced. Suddenly the hands feel foreign. The putter head seems heavier. The backstroke stutters.
The reactive processor's system has shifted from feel-based execution to outcome-monitoring. Because there's insufficient movement feedback to occupy the nervous system, attention redirects to the hands themselves. The autonomous athlete, accustomed to self-directed performance without external pressure, now feels watched and evaluated. Their extrinsic motivation system activates. The combination creates neurological interference.
Practice putting becomes segregated: fine alone, problematic with any stakes or observation.
In Competition
Tournament round. Back nine. The Daredevil has played brilliantly from tee to green. They've hit creative recovery shots, managed risk with instinctive precision, thrived in the flowing, dynamic aspects of the game.
Then they face a four-foot birdie putt. The reactive processor has nothing to react to. The movement is too small, too slow, too controlled. Their self-referenced 
Competitive Style means they're measuring this moment against their own standards of what they should make. Their extrinsic motivation means they're aware of the scorecard, the leaderboard, the people watching.
The hands freeze. The stroke jerks. The ball lips out. The yips have arrived at the worst possible moment, precisely because that moment contains everything that triggers the Daredevil's vulnerability: minimal movement feedback, high external stakes, and a performance that feels disconnected from their natural instinctive abilities.
Why the Myth is Backwards: A 4-Step Protocol
The Daredevil's reactive processing and autonomous style aren't weaknesses to overcome. They're assets to redirect. The solution involves creating sufficient kinesthetic engagement for the reactive system while channeling extrinsic motivation productively.
Step 1: Amplify Proprioceptive Input
The reactive processor needs movement data. Standard putting instruction emphasizes stillness, quiet hands, minimal motion. This advice is poison for your neurological profile.
Implementation: Increase the sensory richness of your putting routine. Add a deliberate waggle. Incorporate a forward press with conscious grip pressure awareness. Create a rhythmic backstroke that involves enough motion to generate proprioceptive feedback. Some reactive athletes benefit from extending their follow-through dramatically, giving the nervous system more movement to process.
Your hands need something to feel. Give them information before the stroke, not silence.
Step 2: Redirect External Focus
Extrinsically motivated athletes perform optimally when external factors are channeled productively. Suppressing your awareness of stakes doesn't work. Redirecting it does.
Implementation: Before short putts, consciously identify what you want observers to see: smoothness, confidence, commitment. Transform external awareness from threat to opportunity. You're not trying to make the putt despite people watching. You're demonstrating your process because people are watching.
This reframe converts evaluative pressure into performance pressure. Daredevils handle performance pressure exceptionally well.
Step 3: Install a Kinesthetic Trigger
Reactive processors need a physical sensation that initiates automatic execution. Verbal cues often fail because they engage the wrong cognitive system.
Implementation: Identify a specific physical sensation that precedes good strokes. This might be the feeling of your left thumb pressing against the grip, the sensation of weight settling into your lead foot, or the awareness of shoulder blade engagement. Before each short putt, consciously activate this sensation. Let it serve as the ignition switch for automatic execution.
The trigger must be bodily, not mental. Reactive athletes don't think their way into flow. They feel their way there.
Step 4: Embrace Your Self-Referenced Standards Differently
Self-referenced competitors measure success against internal benchmarks. When the yips emerge, your standard becomes outcome-focused: make or miss. This creates binary pressure that amplifies the condition.
Implementation: Redefine your self-referenced standard for short putts. Success becomes executing the process with commitment, regardless of result. Track your commitment percentage, not your make percentage. A firmly struck putt that lips out represents success. A tentative putt that drops represents failure.
This isn't psychological trickery. It's accurate recalibration. The yips thrive on outcome obsession. Process commitment starves them.
Overcome The Yips Like a True The Daredevil
You've learned how The Daredevils tackle The Yips in Golf using their natural psychological strengths. But is The Daredevil truly your personality type, or does your mental approach come from a different sport profile? Discover your authentic sport profile.
Find Your Mental EdgeThe Better Framework: Drills for Reactive Processors
These exercises specifically address the Daredevil's neurological needs. They're designed to rebuild automatic putting by engaging your reactive processing system appropriately.
The Continuous Motion Drill
Set up three balls in a line, each three feet from the hole. Address the first ball and begin a continuous, rhythmic putting motion. Stroke the first ball, immediately move to the second, stroke it, move to the third, stroke it. No stopping. No resetting. No time for conscious interference.
This drill floods the reactive system with movement data. The continuous action prevents the nervous system from shifting into monitoring mode. Practice until you can complete all three putts in one fluid sequence without any hesitation or jerking.
Frequency: Daily, 5 minutes before practice rounds
The Eyes-Closed Sensation Drill
From three feet, address a putt with eyes open. Close your eyes. Make three practice strokes while focusing entirely on the feeling in your hands and forearms. With eyes still closed, execute the actual stroke.
This drill forces reliance on proprioceptive feedback rather than visual monitoring. Reactive processors often perform better with reduced visual input because it prevents the cognitive shift toward conscious hand-watching. Track how many putts you hole with eyes closed versus eyes open. Most Daredevils discover their closed-eye percentage is higher.
Frequency: 3x per week, 10 minutes
The Audience Simulation Drill
Record yourself putting three-footers with your phone positioned to capture your hands. Review the footage after each putt. Then repeat the drill while a friend watches in silence.
This exercise desensitizes the extrinsic motivation system to observation. By repeatedly experiencing external attention during short putts in practice, the competitive situation becomes familiar rather than threatening. The autonomous athlete learns to perform under observation without losing their self-directed focus.
Frequency: Weekly, during practice sessions with playing partners
Retraining Your Thinking
Mental preparation for the Daredevil must engage the body first. Abstract visualization has limited effectiveness for reactive processors.
- Pre-Round Kinesthetic Priming
Before your round, spend five minutes making continuous putting strokes without balls. Focus entirely on the physical sensations: grip pressure, arm swing, weight distribution. Create a sensory baseline your nervous system can reference throughout the day. This primes the reactive processing system to stay engaged with physical feedback rather than conscious monitoring.
- In-Round Sensation Anchoring
When facing a pressure putt, avoid mental commands like 'trust it' or 'commit.' Instead, take one practice stroke while consciously noting a specific physical sensation. Say to yourself: 'That feeling.' Then replicate that exact sensation during the actual stroke. The kinesthetic anchor bypasses conscious interference and activates your reactive processing directly.
How Do You Know If You're Beating the Yips?
Improvement follows a predictable sequence for reactive processors addressing this condition.
- Indicator 1: Practice putts under observation feel similar to practice putts alone (reduced physiological difference)
- Indicator 2: You notice physical sensations during short putts rather than conscious hand-monitoring (attention shift)
- Indicator 3: Your stroke tempo remains consistent regardless of putt length or stakes (motor pattern stability)
When Should Daredevils Seek Professional Help?
If the condition persists beyond eight weeks of consistent protocol application, consult a sport psychologist specializing in motor control disorders. If the yips have spread to full shots or other sports activities, professional intervention becomes essential. Neurological conditions occasionally underlie persistent cases and warrant medical evaluation.
Frequently Asked Questions about The Daredevil
Why do Daredevil athletes get the yips when they're supposed to be instinctive?
Reactive processors need sufficient movement feedback to stay in automatic mode. Putting provides minimal kinesthetic data, causing the nervous system to shift into conscious monitoring mode, which creates the involuntary movements characteristic of the yips.
Can the yips be permanently cured for Daredevil golfers?
Yes, with consistent application of protocols designed for reactive processing. The key is rebuilding automatic execution by providing adequate sensory input and redirecting extrinsic motivation productively. Most golfers see significant improvement within four to eight weeks of daily practice.
Should Daredevil athletes change their putting grip to fix the yips?
Grip changes can help by creating novel sensory feedback that temporarily bypasses entrenched patterns. Claw grips, cross-handed grips, and armlock putters all work by engaging different motor pathways. Consider grip modification as one tool within the broader protocol rather than a standalone solution.
This content is for educational purposes, drawing on sport psychology research and professional experience. I hold an M.A. in Social Psychology, an ISSA Elite Trainer and Nutrition certification, and completed professional training in Sport Psychology for Athlete Development through the Barcelona Innovation Hub. I am not a licensed clinical psychologist or medical doctor. Individual results may vary. For clinical or medical concerns, please consult a licensed healthcare professional.
