Golf: Mystery No. 4, The Yips

I have done other articles on the yips, but this is going to be a more in depth look at this dreaded affliction. I will look at the yips from a more historical standpoint, by reviewing some of the big-name golfers that have been affected. What is amazing to me is that the yips have been around since the early 1900’s and there does not seem to be any remedy for them. It is not for lack of effort. None other than the Mayo Clinic has done a major study on the yips in the early 2000’s. They came to the conclusion that the yips may be more of a physical problem than a mental one. I disagree with this conclusion completely, but more on that later. There are many well-known players that have battled the yips, some with more success than others. Let us go back to the first known case, or at least to the first golfer who admitted that he had this problem.

The first well known player to describe the yips was Harry Vardon. They were not called the yips in the early 1900’s. Vardon described watching for this jump of his right hand. His gaze would be riveted on his right hand waiting to see what it would do. He wrote that if it did not happen on the first hole that he would be fine. One of his treatments for the affliction was to practice putt right around dusk or dawn. The lighting would be good enough to see the hole but not good enough to see the character of the green. Vardon had the affliction on putts of 4 feet or less. He blamed all of this on a lack of confidence or lost confidence when it came to making short putts. Vardon had many observations on putting but his best one was the finest way to putt is the way that gets the ball into the hole. Vardon would not be surprised about all the putting methods that are used today some 130 years later. Another wave of yippers, so to speak, came along in the 1920’s and Tommy Armour was given credit for naming the ailment the yips. In his instruction book ABC’s of Golf, the Y chapter is Yips. He does a great job in describing the yips and I feel there are many key words in his description. The yips are a BRAIN SPASM that impairs the short game. There comes that ghastly time when with the first movement of the putter, the golfer blacks out, loses sight of the ball, and hasn’t the remotest idea of what to do with the putter. Armour also states that everybody gets them. Even Bob Jones got the yips. He got rid of them by not lining putts up with the blade of the putter anymore. They would still come back occasionally in the heat of tournament action. The other key aspect of the chapter is that Armour talks about yipping putts in the hole. He writes about yipping a 2-foot putt on the 71st hole missing it in the British Open but then on the last hole needed a three-footer to win and wound up taking a different grip, different stance and somehow making the putt. Despite the changes he yipped but it went in for victory.

The next two golfing greats to be plagued by the yips were Sam Snead and Ben Hogan. Snead got rid of his yips with the croquet style of putting which the USGA quickly banned. There was another pro who had been putting with this croquet method for about a year and no one complained. When Snead did it and had great success, all of a sudden, the USGA had to step in. Snead got around the ban by going side saddle and but that did not give him as good a view of the putt but still accomplished the original goal of getting rid of the yips. Hogan, more of a golf traditionalist, really never got rid of the yips and this cost him many a championship over the years. Bernhard Langer has battled the yips throughout his career and has managed to solve them with various methods, to enable him to have one of the greatest professional careers ever, especially on the senior tour. Two of the best examples of what the yips can do, happened over the last 30 years. In a Shells Wonderful World of Golf match in the late 90’s between Johnny Miller and Jack Nicklaus, Miller had the yips very bad that day and missed short putt after short putt to be defeated by Nicklaus by a resounding 11 shots 70-81. Without a doubt the most graphic example of the yips was Ernie Els’s disastrous 7 putt on the 1st green on the first day of the Masters in 2016 for a 9. If you have the stomach for it, you can watch this on You Tube. What I think is lost in all of this is that he went on to play the next 8 holes in even par. He did run into trouble on the back and shot an 80 for the day. The next day he shot 73 but of course did not make the cut. You have to wonder how he was able to gather himself enough to shoot as well as he did the rest of the day. There have been other players of the recent past that have had the yips, but the above examples are the most graphic.

What can we surmise about the yips over the years from this historical perspective. Let’s get one thing off the table right now, and with all due respect to the Mayo Clinic, the yips are strictly a mental problem. The idea that yips can be brought on by overuse of muscles like in writers cramp or playing the violin too much, just is not true. The yips affect all types of golfers not just the pros and anybody that has a job cannot practice enough to cause the above problems. I wish that was the case, but it simply is not true. This is not an example of focal hand dystonia. As we look back, there are some key observations about the yips made by the professionals that have had to deal with them and instructors that are trying to help the afflicted. Tommy Armour statement that everybody gets the yips is very telling. I see people yip putts and chips every day I play. When a pro misses a huge putt down the stretch believe me, he has yipped it. People will not admit to the yips because I think they fear that if they use the word that the yips will get worse. I don’t blame them, but it does not change the facts. One reason there is the belief that the yips have some kind of physical cause is that many of the remedies involve making a physical change in the way you putt or chip. From the different grips to the long and belly putter, they have all been used to combat yippy strokes. Different techniques in chipping have been used to help with chipping yips ranging from left hand low to chipping one handed. Somehow changing the way you putt or chip, rewires the brain enough to make that part of your game functional again. Some method changes seem to last longer than others, and you will see pros go back and forth between methods. I have written about this before but the reason I think all these method changes work is because the yips are a symptom of a problem, not a disease in itself. The best analogy I have of this is a lack of red blood cells or anemia. If someone is anemic, it can be caused by many different things at many different levels. A person could be losing blood, not producing red cells, producing flawed red cells, or have red blood cells destroyed internally. The idea is to find the disease that is making a person anemic. The exact same thing can be said of the yips. The idea is to find the issue that is causing the yips. What could be causing the putting yips may not be causing the chipping yips. There is driving yips, and in my view shanking is nothing more than the iron yips. These can also have different causes than the putting or chipping yips.

At least for the moment, the best we can do is muddle through some of these temporary but effective solutions to keep the yips under control. From a personal note, it always amazes me how I am always surprised when I make the first yip of the day. I do not know why I have this reaction. I have it more so on putts, rather than on chips. I know I battle the chip yips more than the putting yips, but I still should not be surprised when I do either one. Stress over a particular putt or shot many times will precipitate a yip. I do not disagree with this statement. However, the yips seem to happen on the easier shots and putts, not on the more difficult ones. I know when a shot or putt is perceived as easy, this automatically puts our expectations higher on the result of the shot. I am not sure that this is enough in the thought process to cause a yip, but it is one of the frustrating things about the yips. One thing is for sure, there are no cures for the yips as of yet, despite what you see on internetville. Please do not give anybody any money that says they can cure your yips. It ain’t happening man. If I ever find a permanent solution to those darn things believe me, it will be free of charge.