Golfers may soon be singing "yippy-i-o OK"

Yips, the hand jerks that add strokes to a golfer's game, may not come from anxiety after all.

By Victoria Stagg Elliott, AMNews staff. April 14, 2003.

The fairway is silent. It's just you, a club and a tiny ball. You take your stance, raise for the swing, and "YIP!" your hand jerks and the ball flies toward the nearest water hazard.

As exasperated as your mental state might be, the problem itself isn't necessarily in your head. A study published in the March Sports Medicine, a peer-reviewed journal from the New Zealand-based Adis International, suggests that the "yips" may be a form of focal dystonia that can afflict anyone who performs repetitive, skilled hand movements.

"For many years, the 'yips' was seen as a purely psychological problem -- something that was all in the golfer's head," said Aynsley Smith, PhD, lead author of the paper and director of sport psychology and sports medicine research at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. But the study of 72 yipping golfers found that 55% described the ailment in terms consistent with symptoms of a dystonia. Only 22% described the condition in terms that would indicate a psychological problem.

This is not the first time a study has attempted to accurately define and categorize the yips, but it may be the first that will be followed up with treatment efforts. Mayo Clinic researchers are planning a putting tournament at which yippers will be studied with objective measures such as heart rates and stress hormones.