The baring of one's soul on this subject can either be cathartic or put the final layer of cement on the highway to Hell.
If you ask me, the hardest thing with the Yipperoos is finally admit you are so afflicted. I am uniquely qualified to discuss the subject having finally rid myself of the delusion I am still 35 years old with a deadly stroke and impossibly good short game.
That guy is long dead and there is no longer a point in crying over his cadaver. That impostor who took his place is more likely to skull a delicate chip through the clubhouse window (or stub the ball six inches) than leave it anywhere on the putting surface.
The impostor even looks like me in the mirror - except with gray hair - but any right-to-left putt under pressure inside four feet is an automatic whiff. Of course, there is already vomit on the putting surface before my backstroke, so it is no wonder the ball bounces around . . . . .
The temporary “cure” for me came about when a noted teacher in our area noticed I aimed my blade six inches to the right of the hole on every putt over 18 inches and compensated for it in my stroke.
The theory is that faulty alignment is the root cause of the yips because once your brain loses the ability to (re)square the putter, all the necessary compensations short-circuit your brain.
This worked beautifully to help reorient my impact alignment, but for every action with a hopeless head-case, there is an equal and opposite unintended consequence.
Normally, right-handed players have more difficulty with left-to-right sliders than a putt that “hooks.” For years, I was more comfortable nursing a fading ball into the hole than having to actually hit a putt to a spot that falls away to the left.
Naturally, after overcoming my whiskey-fingered, electric hands palsy, any putt moving to the right was automatically over-read and missed by - no surprise – about six inches.
In the end, putting is 99% belief in your read and 1% execution. Billy Mayfair can serve as Exhibit A, along with the fact that Ben Crenshaw's knees move when he strokes the ball.
The worst part is that the magic reappears every so often to taunt me, just as providence chose to mercilessly torture Watson, Palmer, Lanny and nearly every other putter who once firmly directed the ball into the center of the hole.
I'm trying to recall anyone who learned to roll the rock cross-handed ever finding themselves in the private hell of contortive yiposity. This cack-handed observation may hold a clue to unravel the contradictory symbiotic relationship between two sides of the human brain.
Or it may be that until fairly recently, learning to putt cross-handed from the get-go was unheard of - and therefore nobody is old enough (yet) to have accumulated the necessary scar tissue to invite its onset.
I've tried The Claw, the Broom Handle, belly putter, cross-handed, back-handed, one-handed, left-handed, both ways with a Bulls Eye putter and even something resembling the old Bernhard Langer method until I realized my forearms are bigger than my hands.
I would stick the grip up my butt and stroke the ball by wiggling my ass if I thought it would work. The whole thing is hopeless because I've never met anyone who was permanently cured of this dreaded affliction. The yips are like herpes, except your underwear doesn't cover up an outbreak.
Mac O'Grady once spent the better part of an afternoon carefully explaining to me the neurology of how the yips begin in the fingers and gradually move their way up to the shoulder. Mayo Clinic stuff far above the head of a Cinematography Major. At one point I had a case of the Sergio's, but it was mostly a side-effect of some medicine I was taking.
During that time, the flat stick and dainty wedges remained bullet-proof. The yips did not come from the drugs baby, they grew out of the darkness of my tortured subconscious. I did it to myself. That is the worst part - when you KNOW that the only impediment standing in your way is the inability to control an involuntary twitch that comes out of nowhere. I can see how a Tour Pro could be driven to suicidal madness.
The strange thing is that I can beat anybody playing the game Operation - with either hand - but a 10-inch putt is an emotional trauma.
Sam Snead was so desperate he went side-saddle, but the Slammer would have stuck the grip in his mouth on national television if he thought it would get the ball in the hole. The most telling shared experience is that every golfer with the yips can tell you the precise moment when the magic evaporated - and the shivers of fear over a meaningless stroke forever wrapped its icy fingers around your neck.
Elmer Sears Semi-Final Match, Del Rio Country Club, Brawley, California - 2003.