A Cruel Affliction

Julian Tutt discusses the curse of the dreaded yips and asks where does Tiger Woods go from here?

Anirban Lahiri has been in red-hot form

There are two types of golfer when it comes to understanding the yips: those who suffer and those who don't. My old mate Denis Hutchinson was a great chipper and putter. His patrician advice was tinged with scorn as he assured me my problems would be resolved if I just improved my technique. Until the day, admittedly well into his 70s, when he caught "the twitch". Scorn was replaced by understanding and compassion as he realised that the condition, although perhaps caused by some unexplained malfunction of the nervous system, becomes almost exclusively mental. You'll find plenty of experts who will avow that it's all down to a proper technique. What, so Hendry's cueing action was rubbish? Bristow, perhaps the most charismatic and talented player ever to step up to the oche, didn't know how to bend his right arm? Tiger Woods didn't have a 10th dan black belt in the short game?

Ah yes, Woods. The Tiger who has finally been tamed by a crippling inability to lay club on ball as intended. What soul-destroying humiliation for a man who could hover a Swoosh on the brink before commanding it to plunge the depths in fist-pumping jubilation. Scarred and bruised he has retreated to lick his wounds in the privacy of his practice ground to bring his game back to "an acceptable standard". I am no sports psychologist, but I fear Tiger's great strength has become his weakness. The heavily stage-managed mea culpa apology after the 'fire hydrant' and his infamous fall from grace lacked one or two essential ingredients: genuine humility and honesty, for a start. Now it seems that he is fearful of admitting the truth, perhaps even to himself. One of his former coaches Hank Haney believes to beat the yips you have to confront them head on, which first and foremost means admitting that you've got them.

On occasions, I can still be a pretty reasonable chipper, once I'm in the groove. It can suddenly click in practice after yipping the same shot 20 or 30 times. You can even delude yourself into thinking that 'you're back'! But then you go out and miss the first green by 10 yards and have a tricky curling downhiller with just one go at it. Five, six, seven practise swings. Yep, it feels good. Smooth takeaway, head still, watch the ball, don't decelerate, (the inner voice shouts "NO CHANCE, MATE"), twitch and it's skinned into the bunker on the other side of the green. “Pass me my sword, I wish to fall on it". For a man with as many major titles as Woods, performing such tortured mishits in front of millions must indeed be torture. But running away to hide until the problem is resolved, won't resolve the problem. He might be brilliant in practice, but the longer he leaves it before doing it 'for real', the harder and harder it will get. Maybe he will be the exception that proves the rule. Maybe. But once again we're seeing that golf is a game that you just can't mess with. The brilliant Tiger has tried to change his modus operandi at least three times. Even the genius that he is has become befuddled and confused. There may not be another lifeguard capable of saving him. He may have submerged for the last time. The golfing world desperately hopes not.

Meanwhile, it's gratifying for the Asian Tour to note the success that their players have enjoyed in recent partner events with the European Tour. Since David Lipsky triumphed in the co-sanctioned European Masters in Crans-sur-Sierre last September, Scott Hend has won here in Hong Kong, Anirban Lahiri in Malaysia, Andrew Dodt at the inaugural True Thailand Classic in Hua Hin and Lahiri again at the recent Hero Indian Open. All were achieved a little unexpectedly, but with great drama and excitement.

Anything is possible in this wonderful game. Unless you have the yips: the destroyer of champions and hackers alike.

 

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