A golfer stands over a three-foot putt they have made thousands of times—and suddenly their hands refuse to cooperate. The movement may become jerky, hesitant, or almost impossible to initiate, a phenomenon golfers have long called the yips. What looks like a simple case of nerves may actually involve a complicated interaction between anxiety, attention, and motor control. Research suggests that there may even be different forms of the yips, with psychological factors dominating some cases and neurological mechanisms contributing to others. In this episode, we explore what happens when an automatic athletic skill suddenly becomes something the golfer can no longer trust.
