I played in a club match-play tournament one year, hacker flight. Got paired against a new member who had joined about a month earlier. I was a 18 handicap and had to give him one stroke or something like that. So as he starts out parring every hole he mentions that at his old club he had developed the shanks. Handicap went from single digits to 20-something in a few months. Couldn't break 100 shanking every short iron he hit. Quit playing, couldn't stand the shanks.
After half a year away from the game he takes a few lessons, starts back playing, joins our club. They gave him his handicap from the old club and before the match-play he posts something like 102-98-94-90-89 and then plays me in the first round. I conceded him a 5-footer for birdie on the ninth hole to take him back to even par and put me 6 or 7 down at the turn. I somehow won a couple holes before je finished me off by hitting a long, blind bunker shot to six inches on the fourteenth hole and tapping in for yet another par. I think he made like 3-4 bogeys over 14 holes, playing off 19.
Then the rest of the story. We decided to play the last four holes which he plays something like double, double, triple, double and posts an 81 in the computer. Yeah, it was the shanks all right. Shanks for nothing, pal.