The "Y" Word

As the reader is no doubt aware, there are two words that should never pass a golfer's lips, at least if that golfer hopes to play with other homo sapiens.  The one we shall not be discussing begins with an "s" and is the far less dangerous of the two, as it's possible to shank a ball only occasionally and still be permitted to show one's face in polite golf society.

The yips, on the other hand, are the kind of life-altering affliction that will have your mates speaking of you in whispered asides comparable to the death of a spouse after a long and painful illness.  The Yips are also the subject of a full-length article by David Owen in the May 26th edition of The New Yorker, and it's a fascinating, if ultimately depressing, dissertation.  The article is behind the magazine's firewall, and your humble blogger is acutely aware that I've finally gotten around to blogging it when the issue is no longer available for sale.  The teaser can be found here, and the article can be read in its entirety via a one-month free trial subscription.  Or, in the alternative, you can ask to borrow my copy.

 David also wrote about the piece at The Loop, from whence come these gems:

I have an article in this week’s New Yorker about the yips. The term was coined around the middle of the last century by the Scottish golfer Tommy Armour, a sufferer, who defined it as “a brain spasm that impairs the short game.” (Stephen Potter, in his book Golfmanship, published in 1968, quoted Armour and added, “‘Impairs’ is a euphemism.”) Yipping typically involves an involuntary twitch of a golfer’s hands, wrists, or forearms. The late British golf writer and television commentator Henry Longhurst once said that he didn’t have the yips but was a “carrier.”

I've always loved Longhurst's line about being a carrier, and have appropriated it for my own on many occasions.  David also provides this video of perhaps the most famous yipped putt ever (Scott Hoch fans please spare me your outraged e-mails), but it's really far too painful to watch:

As noted in the teaser, the yips have ensnared some of the true greats of our game, starting with Harry Vardon and continuing through Sam Snead, Ben Hogan, Tom Watson and Johnny Miller.  And that doesn't include Bernhard Langer, who has famously survived at least two cases of the yips by altering his putting grip.

Owen amusingly identifies a wide range of other sports with yippers, including cricket bowlers (also called the yips), darts (called "dartitis"), snooker ("cueitis") archery ("target panic") and, most notably baseball, where it's called everything from "The Creature" to "Steve Blass disease", after the Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher of the 1970's.  And none of us in the New York area can forget Chuck Knoblauch, who lost the ability to make the soft toss from second base (though could always make the bang-bang play).

The article explores in depth the attempt to distinguish between psychological and neurological causes, the latter of which most experts think predominate in true cases of the yips.  In fact, Johnny Miller described his problem as "A wire corrodes in his head."  

As the Hank Haney example shows, the yips can affect full swings as well, despite being more frequently associated with the shorter, slower swings involved in chipping and pitching.  But clearly the yips involves some combination of the psychological and neurological, as Haney developed an interesting workaround for clinics, hitting the ball while looking at the audience.  

There is obviously some visual component or cue involved in focal dystonia, the fancy clinical term for the yips, and anxiety also has an exacerbating effect.  For instance, there's no known example of a blind golfer suffering from the yips, and many players, such as Haney, have found relief in not looking at the ball or in closing their eyes.  

It's a fascinating subject about which we'll undoubtedly learn more from future studies.  And it of course begs the question of whether David Owen is now a carrier.