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AFT announces first ever Yipper's Open! |
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May 31, 2005; Source: AnyoneForTee Anyone For Tee launches Yipper's Open as publisher succumbs to chipping and putting 'Double Whammy' |
INTERNATIONAL. In a historic golfing breakthrough, Anyone For Tee has announced the first ever Yipper's Open. The event will be strictly limited to players suffering from the putting or chipping 'yips' and each entrant will have to produce professional certification to attest to their golfing condition. The tournament will take place between 1 June and 30 September 2006 at the Dufftown Golf Club in Dufftown, Banffshire, Scotland (right) - the par 67 5,308 yard spiritual home of the world's golfing duffers.The event will run over four months instead of the usual four days because of the expected difficulties many of the worst-afflicted yippers will have in completing the holes. An Anyone For Tee spokesman said: "This could be bigger than the Masters - certainly it will take longer. Can you imagine the pressure on the leaders as they come down the home stretch with millions of viewers watching around the world and egging on their heroes to six, seven or eight putt?"  "This event will reach out to the common golfer everywhere. Golf used to be such an elitist sport - played by yuppies. Now it's the turn of the yippies."The yips are a psycho neuromuscular problem that often occurs in golf (especially during chipping or putting) when the golfer experiences freezing, jerking, or a tremor prior to attempting a stroke. Fast, downhill and left-to-right breaking putts of two to five feet are most likely to produce symptoms, although long putts also cause problems for some golfers.  Famous players to have been affected include Sam Snead (above left), Ben Hogan, Byron Nelson and Tommy Armour (who invented the name 'yips'), to the most famous modern day sufferers - Peter Alliss, Tom Watson and Bernhard Langer (right). Craig Stadler was wrongly diagnosed as a sufferer until it became clear that the repeated jerking motion associated with yipping only affected him when it came to stuffing repeat orders of hamburgers into his mouth.A similar condition affects other athletes such as darts players and javelin throwers. One former British world champion darts player experienced such difficulty projecting the dart that he ended up propelling himself through the air, narrowly missing a perfect bull's-eye only because he was too rotund too fit between the wires and subsequently bounced out of the board. The creation of the Yippers' Open is expected to generate enormous international media coverage. The announcement comes hot on the heels of Anyone For Tee's decision to create a global foundation to help find a cure for an ailment that afflicts millions of sporting lives around the world - the chipping yips. The foundation's acronym ITTTTTTCYA (It's Time To Take Those Terrible Trembling Chipping Yips Away!) has been deliberately chosen to mirror the stuttering-like effect felt by most chippists as they attempt to make contact with the ball.  Anyone For Tee has a personal stake (T-Bone, medium rare with horseradish on the side) in this sensitive subject. One of its co-publishers now suffers from the rare and debilitating 'Double Yips' syndrome, which affects the entire short game of anyone afflicted with the condition. The affliction revealed itself horribly during a recent regional Duffer's Golf Chapter tournament in Zhuhai, China, where despite being paired with a fellow duffer, Indian number 19,064 Sunil Tuli, the hapless publisher (leftmost in this picture, next to Tuli) halved a hole with a 13-over par 17 after being beside the green in two. "And even then I had to sink a three-footer with my eyes closed and using my driver," he told anyone who would listen in the clubhouse later.ITTTTTTCYA and Anyone For Tee have been joined as Founder Sponsors of the Yippers' Open by fast-growing and innovative golfing equipment supplier Gobra ('Supporting women's golf for 20 years'), which will be unveiling, so to speak, its new Anti-Yip Underpants at the tournament.  The revolutionary sportswear (right) utilises a radical approach to help restrict the 'jerk' so familiar to those afflicted by the yips. The garments are made from an extra-tight-fitting material (based on lycra with steel reinforcing bands, in a construction adapted from car tyres), which gives the yipper the impression of wearing underpants five sizes too small. Gobra spokesperson Bonnie King (left) explained the effects of the state of the art technology. "Our anti-yip underpants will bring tears to the eyes of any yips sufferer who dons them. The wearer will find that the pressure around what we describe in golf as the two ball format, will alleviate the tension they may have otherwise felt in their arms and wrists while addressing the third ball. Apart from the inevitable side effect of speaking in a falsetto for a week or so after a tournament, the test results have so far been outstanding."Background: The Mayo Sports Clinic of Scottsdale, Arizona (take the 3rd turn on the left off Highway 101, otherwise you'll pass the Mayo) has found that some 25% of avid golfers develop the yips, which adds an estimated 4.7 strokes to the average 18-hole score of an affected player. While non-affected golfers were able to make an average of nine out of ten consecutive five-foot putts, the yips-affected golfers made only half of theirs. Anyone For Tee's co-publisher now makes only 10% of putts from a foot and is distinctly shaky from closer in. |
Can you help? Anyone For Tee's co-publisher is on the verge of giving up this great game. As the great golfing journalist Henry Longhurst, who abandoned golf after an illustrious amateur career because of the yips, once wrote, "Once you've had 'em, you've got 'em". Is that true? Is there any way, other than wearing his four year old son's underpants that he can be cured? He has tried to no avail the broom handle putter, complaining that the bristles on the brush kept scarring the greens. So please send your suggestions to teebox@anyonefortee.com and win a free place in the 2006 Yippers' Open. |
Living with the yips is an appalling affliction. Sufferers are afraid to discuss their condition openly or even pronounce the word, and this secrecy only adds to the nervous tension they feel on the golf course when they are with their fellow golfers, making the problem worse.  Experts in sports psychology at the Mayo Clinic believe that simply recognising that one has the disease is the first step towards a possible cure. Self-help groups, where yippers share their experiences with fellow sufferers, can also bring comfort and alleviate the sense of isolation from the golfing community which the disease inflicts. We felt that we could help in both these areas.Anyone For Tee has therefore commissioned a special song for yippers, in the hope that this will become the rallying cry for sufferers around the world. Adapted from a Sonny and Cher classic, the music is soothing, the lyrics are heartfelt. Click here and sing it proudly, as you feel your tension levels ease. |
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