Two prominent, skilled Alaskan golfers punctuated my first round of 2025 with talk of the yips. This is worth discussing, because neither of the players are bad putters in my mind, but both seem to have zero confidence in themselves.
One of them invented a completely new grip designed to keep his thumbs off the club while putting, because the right thumb in particular seemed to be the cause of all his problems. The other yipster ordered a side-saddle putter from Billy Bomar, who still lives in Post Falls, ID and is still heavily involved in the professional golf world.
It will be interesting to see how their respective experiments go. We talked at length in the Palmer clubhouse about their issues, with one of them concluding golf just isn’t fun if you are afraid of eight-foot putts. Though not specifically expressed, it sounded as though the lifelong golfer would give up the game if his new grip doesn’t work.
At one point, I mentioned I enjoy myself even while shooting 87 and the yipster said he can’t do that. I thought about that for a couple of days, wondering why I enjoy golf so much more than him. Is it just because I don’t have the yips? I concluded it was because I still hit 80 percent of shots really well during a “bad” round. All my extra strokes come from the type of shots that are easily shrugged off, because they are just a result of not being sharp or polished. The vast majority of the time, I’m giddy with excitement over how well I am hitting the ball with all my clubs, so score doesn’t matter. I know if I played more often, I would score well.
Someone with the yips, however, doesn’t know what is happening to them. Having no answers to a puzzle is frustrating and therefore a source of angst. This forces a golfer to feel like giving up, because they are at their wits end and can’t take it anymore.
As for my own personal opening round at Palmer Golf Course, I didn’t keep score, but it would have been around 85. The first tee shot was my first swing of the year, and I couldn’t even make contact with most full shots until the eighth hole. I started hitting real golf shots by the 10th tee and even birdied 11 and 12. I finished strong and felt warmed up for the 2025 season.
Palmer still had some temporary greens, but there was a ton of grass on the greens from which tarps had just been removed. George Collum, who manages the course, was excited about how things look so far and said if we can get a warm May, the course could be in the best shape it’s been for many years.
One last thought about the yips. Lucas Glover of the PGA Tour, a U.S. Open winner, battled yips for years before discovering the problem wasn’t mental. Scientists have proven that yips in all sports are actually a physical problem created by overuse of muscles. Professional athletes who have repeatedly made the same physical movements at extreme levels of practice and play actually ruin the brain-to-muscle connection. Their body parts literally won’t listen to the brain’s command anymore. The solution for Glover was to come up with a new method for putting, one that used different muscles to fire the club through the ball. It worked and his career has been thriving ever since.
Said knowledge would indicate that both Alaskan Yipsters referred to in this post are on the right track. I expect their brand new methods will work and golf will be fun again.
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