Calm down, golfers - help is at hand for the 'yips' (that's an involuntary twitch, for the uninitiated)

By DAILY MAIL REPORTER
Updated:

It's the bane of all golfers, from the top professionals to the weekend hackers.

The yips is an involuntary twitch which can make even the world’s best players miss the shortest of putts.

And for decades the dreaded condition has been attributed to a nervousness caused by performance anxiety.

Anxiety? But Robert Prichard, an expert in biomechanics, claims it is use of the driver, not the putter, which is at the root of the 'yips' problem. (Pic posed by models)

Anxiety? But Robert Prichard, an expert in biomechanics, claims it is use of the driver, not the putter, which is at the root of the 'yips' problem. (Pic posed by models)

But now an American sports scientist has come up with a new theory for its cause – scar tissue in the arms.

Robert Prichard, an expert in biomechanics, claims it is use of the driver, not the putter, which is at the root of the problem.

He said the golf swing of some players sees them gripping the driver particularly hard. Essentially, what is good for constant ball-striking is bad for putting.

‘The driver head is going over 100 miles an hour through space and is pulling away from the golfer with 100 pounds of force,’ Mr Prichard said.

‘Even though this pull only lasts for a fraction of a second, it is repeated over and over again and it results in the tearing of hundreds of the tens of thousands of small individual muscle fibres that make up each muscle in the forearms.’

However, Mr Prichard’s theory has gained little support from fellow sports scientists.

‘No one has proven that the yips are not a purely psychological or psychosomatic phenomenon,’ said Douglas Baumgarten, another biomechanics expert.

‘The fact that some golfers experience the yips and then miraculously recover certainly suggests a strong psychological component.’

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