Tiger has the yips?

**bunkerputt** · June 9, 2008

I read a semi-interesting yarn by Robert Anthony Prichard:

Tiger Woods Is Getting The Yips

In it, he claims the act of resisting the centrifugal force created by the rotation of the golf swing in order to return the club to its same plane at impact tears muscles beyond repair. For his "proof", he asks you to simply do a google search for "lifting weights muscle fiber tear". He also reports the facts that the best ball-strikers, Snead, Trevino, and Hogan, all struggled with putting. This, he claims, is directly a result of the fact that they maintained their spine angles and club shaft angles at impact from address.

He then shows a couple of images of Tiger from around 2001 and 2007 where he shows the difference between the change in the spine angles at impact and the angle between the right forearm and the club shaft at impact. His claim is that Tiger has switched from a 'Ballistic' hitter: one who lets the swinging weight pull his arms straight, to a 'Gripper': someone who resists the weight of the club in order to maintain spine angle at impact. It is this change, Prichard implies, that is a recipe for the yips in Tiger's game. In fact, he claims, Tiger's putting stats are already starting to bear this out: In 2004, he was ranked #20 in putts/round, and in 2006, he was #137. Nevermind that Tiger was #134 in 2001, well into his 'Ballistic' swinging days.

Most of Prichard's article reads like noise from a wannabe 80's shooter who likes milking folks of their hard-earned money with some promise-but-not-deliver swing method. He does point out some interesting things, though. Why is it that Snead, Trevino, and Hogan all struggled with putting? Does resisting the club head weight actually do lasting damage to your muscles? I know that, in the short term, bicep workouts affect putting feel. This comes from my own experience, really. I literally cannot avoid 3-putting the day after a hard bicep workout. But this isn't because I'm yipping the putter on my stroke. It's more because I can't feel the right distances since my biceps are sore. The weight of my arms also changes considerably because of the increased blood flow, which affects my stroke's rhythm. But, within a couple of days, I'm back to normal. Is there any credibility to his claim that with the modern golf swing, ball-striking and solid putting are mutually exclusive?

**michaeljames92** · June 9, 2008

that is very interesting. bring on the broomstick eh?

**mikelz** · June 9, 2008

I Googled the guy. There first three mentions are all about a new book.
There are a few more - all are about the book or articles for sale.
He is described as a "Biomechanics expert" in one of his ads.
Screw him.

***iacas*** · June 9, 2008

I Googled the guy. There first three mentions are all about a new book.

Ditto all that.

There are a lot of great ballstrikers who didn't suffer from the yips, too.

**niblick** · June 9, 2008

Hogan struggled with his putting because damage done by the car crash robbed him of some of his depth perception. Had nothing to do with his ball striking.

**Cleveland Gunmetal** · June 9, 2008

I'm not even sure I'd call that semi-interesting.

**Richie3Jack** · June 9, 2008

It's an interesting study although I'd like further proof of it being true. Plus, it didn't seem like Tiger was truly "yipping" his putts...more like he just couldn't get a putt to fall due to his reads/distances being a tad bit off. But most of Pritchard's stuff is dead on correct. So he may be onto something.

3JACK

**Richie3Jack** · June 9, 2008

I Googled the guy. There first three mentions are all about a new book.

I'm not sure how that makes him a bad guy. Think guys like Harmon, Utley, Haney, Leadbetter, etc. are not pimping something like their schools or books, etc. just about all of the time?

It's how they make money and it's something that they have to constantly have to do to keep their name circulating. 3JACK

**mikelz** · June 9, 2008

It's an interesting study although I'd like further proof of it being true. Plus, it didn't seem like Tiger was truly "yipping" his putts...more like he just couldn't get a putt to fall due to his reads/distances being a tad bit off. But most of Pritchard's stuff is dead on correct. So he may be onto something.

How can you need further proof of truth and declare 'dead on correct' in the same breath?

**bunkerputt** · June 9, 2008

I'm not even sure I'd call that semi-interesting.

Probably right. Most of what the guy says begs too many questions to mention. But from the images, it does seem that the spine angle straightens when the impact and address planes are different. This does seem like it would be tricky to time correctly. I think this guy's trying to ride the Moe Norman train, incidentally. He mentions that no golfers swing the way he recommends. But his model swing dude looks eerily like Moe Norman...

**Alex B** · June 9, 2008

In fact, he claims, Tiger's putting stats are already starting to bear this out: In 2004, he was ranked #20 in putts/round, and in 2006, he was #137. Nevermind that Tiger was #134 in 2001, well into his 'Ballistic' swinging days.

This one in simple (or so I thought). In 2004, Tiger was in the process of retooling his swing and was hitting, according to the stats at pgatour.com, only 66.9% of greens in regulation. Therefore, he had more one-putts for par. In 2006, Tiger lead the PGA Tour in percentage of greens hit (74.15%). Many of his former one-putts for par were now two-putts for par.

It is, however, true that Tiger putted slightly better in 2004 than in 2006. In the former year, he averaged 1.724 putts per GIR with approaches that likely finished father from the hole than those in 2006, when he averaged 1.756 putts per GIR. The following is a list of Tiger's putts per GIR each year he's been on tour. I've including his GIR percentage in parentheses: although this number does not factor into the putts-per-GIR statistics, it gives a good indication of how well Tiger was hitting the ball; when he's hitting more GIR, he's likely hitting it closer to the hole, and therefore should be taking fewer putts. 1996: 1.778 putts per GIR (71.2% GIR) 1997: 1.776 (70.3%) 1998: 1.805 (67.6%) 1999: 1.761 (71.4% 2000: 1.717 (75.2%) 2001: 1.774 (71.9%) 2002: 1.766 (74.0%) 2003: 1.732 (68.63%) 2004: 1.724 (66.9%) 2005: 1.731 (69.9%) 2006: 1.756 (74.15%) 2007: 1.733 (71.02%) From 1996-2002, the hypothesis that Tiger will have fewer putts per GIR when he hits more GIR (and is therefore hitting the ball closer to the hole) proves correct. In this span, his best year in terms of GIR (2000) is also his best year for putts per GIR; conversely, his worst year for putts per GIR (1998) is also his worst year for GIR. After 2002, however, this pattern breaks down. With the exception of 2000, 2003-2007 are Tiger's best years in terms of putts per GIR. Surprisingly, however, his GIR stats are slightly down in many of these years. Even more surprisingly, his best year from 2003-2007 in terms of GIR (2006) is also his worst year in terms of putts per GIR, and his worst year for GIR (2004) is his best for putts per. The author of this article dishonestly used these seemingly fluke numbers from 2004 and 2006 to show that Tiger's putting is declining; evidence from other years, however, disprove this assertion. If anyone has any reasons for the strange numbers in 2004 and 2006, please post them - I'm curious. Ah, the joys of no school, sitting in an air-conditioned room with too much time on my hands...

**Richie3Jack** · June 9, 2008

How can you need further proof of truth and declare 'dead on correct' in the same breath?

I didn't. I said *most* of his stuff is dead on correct. I didn't say everything is dead on correct.

Big difference. 3JACK

**Richie3Jack** · June 9, 2008

Probably right. Most of what the guy says begs too many questions to mention. But from the images, it does seem that the spine angle straightens when the impact and address planes are different. This does seem like it would be tricky to time correctly. I think this guy's trying to ride the Moe Norman train, incidentally. He mentions that no golfers swing the way he recommends. But his model swing dude looks eerily like Moe Norman...

No, but tons of golfers try to incorporate some of the same things Moe did...including Tiger Woods. The spine angle isn't supposed to straighten out and if you watch classic ballstrikers like Trevino, Snead, Couples, Garcia, etc....their spine angle is the same throughout the golf swing.

3JACK

**bunkerputt** · June 9, 2008

My guess about the numbers is that in 2004, when his ballstriking wasn't up to Tiger-standards, he had to scramble his putter a lot more. So his putting got better just out of necessity because the guy is an incredible scorer.

**bunkerputt** · June 9, 2008

No, but tons of golfers try to incorporate some of the same things Moe did...including Tiger Woods. The spine angle isn't supposed to straighten out and if you watch classic ballstrikers like Trevino, Snead, Couples, Garcia, etc....their spine angle is the same throughout the golf swing.

Exactly. His point is that when your arms straighten at impact, you must stand up through impact in order to hit the ball. If you preserve your spine angle, you must retain the right-arm/shaft angle you had at address. How much your arms straighten is comparatively how much you must stand up. Since your arms straighten as a result of speed, you have to straighten different heights depending on how hard you swing. He claims this is difficult to time correctly, and I would think he is correct on that point.

**Cleveland Gunmetal** · June 9, 2008

My guess about the numbers is that in 2004, when his ballstriking wasn't up to Tiger-standards, he had to scramble his putter a lot more. So his putting got better just out of necessity because the guy is an incredible scorer.

He was just missing more greens. Only natural to have fewer putts when your GIR % is lower, as Alex B posted. And vice versa, if he's leading the tour in GIR then his putts per round will go up. That's why I hate that stat. Tiger was then and remains the best mid range par putter I have ever seen.

**bunkerputt** · June 9, 2008

He was just missing more greens. Only natural to have fewer putts when your GIR % is lower, as Alex B posted. And vice versa, if he's leading the tour in GIR then his putts per round will go up. That's why I hate that stat. Tiger was then and remains the best mid range par putter I have ever seen.

Missed greens don't give you a PPGIR by definition. I think you probably mean PPMGIR, which I agree should be lower.

**Shindig** · June 9, 2008

Ditto all that.

Plus, seeing as how the yips are a mental problem, not a physical problem, it's unlikely Tiger will ever have them.

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