Study finds it’s almost entirely men who get the yips

The movement disorder known as the yips, which is characterised in golf by typically experienced golfers missing easy putts often due to wrist spasms, affects men far more than women, a new study has found.

“In a recent study presented at the World Scientific Congress of Golf, Dutch researchers looked at the prevalence of this issue,” explains neuroscientist Stephen Smith, who defines the yips as “an involuntary jerky movement when the required movement is a smooth action. It is particularly noticeable in golf in putting and chipping.”

The researchers found that five to six percent of golfers believe they have the condition.

“This would indicate over 273,000 golfers in the UK suffer from this affliction – with most of them being men,” adds Smith.

“If the Dutch sample is representative then the yips is a very male-oriented phenomenon. Eighty-seven percent of those indicating they suffered were male.

“This may be an artefact of the fact that more males play golf or the pathways that bring males and females into the game. There could be an underlying sex based / genetic component but the root causes for this problem are not understood.

“Whatever drives the yips to appear it’s one golf club that females are happy to be excluded from.”

The study also found that yips are more likely to develop in better  players and not higher handicappers, those who suffer from it were more likely to smoke or have been smokers in the past and there was a familial effect with those suffering seeing it more often in relatives.

The researchers noted that there were some overlaps with other, similar, conditions, known as dystonias, but golf yips were unique and seemed to have a higher prevalence than observed in other sports or areas such as music where performers are known to suffer similar afflictions.

“This condition is very poorly researched and a lot more needs to be done if we are ever to truly understand what causes it and how we can help people who get it,” he concludes.