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AFT creates global anti-chipping-yips foundation! |
March 28, 2004; Source: AnyoneForTee"It's time to end the shame," say publishers By our Behavioural Correspondent Chip Back UK. Leading international golf media Anyone For Tee is creating a global foundation to help find a cure for an ailment that afflicts millions of sporting lives around the world – the chipping yips.  "It’s time to end the shame and the pain," said an Anyone For Tee co-publisher (pictured left) on the grounds of anonymity, his local pitch and putt course near Surbiton. "Like countless others in the golfing world I have suffered from this terrible wasting illness. Currently it’s wasting me at least twelve shots a round."The publisher’s refusal to declare his identity illustrates the deep shame felt by chip yippers – or chippists as they are commonly known. 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, while the foundation's logo, seen above right, represents the chippist (symbolised by the Duffers Golf Club Crown) rising triumphantly above a five iron, a wedge and a ball.  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. Men meeting Margaret Thatcher for the first time used to suffer a similar phobia. As Anyone For Tee's man explained, the problem often begins with the takeaway. "With chips, if your takeaway's no good, you're looking for trouble. Dodgy chips can make you really sick," he said, turning green at the thought.ITTTTTTCYA is seeking global sponsorship from some of the biggest names in sports and medicine to help advance its work. Anyone For Tee is donating 50% of its advertising revenues in helping set up the foundation, which should help a down payment on the office door handle. And this week, fast-growing golfing equipment supplier GOBRA agreed to contribute a percentage of all sales of its revolutionary new golfing underpants to ITTTTTTCYA.  "We’re pleased to help with anything that gives a golfer more control over his balls," said Gobra spokesperson Bonnie King. "Our golfing underpants are designed to get up and down easily, and chipping shouldn’t be any different." The chipping yips has had far less media attention than its sister ailment, the 'glamour disease' of putting yips (see picture right of a patient under treatment for putting yips at the Mayo Institute). But it is believed to be the biggest cause of strokes on the golf course, exceeding the air shot, the shank, the topped drive and the six-pack of beer on the front nine.Thousands of cures for chip yipping have been tested and failed. Many chippists have been forced to quit the game – at least before they reach the green. Driving ranges the world over are known to be packed with chippists who go there for relief knowing they won’t be forced to try to get up and down in less than nine shots.  There are many manifestations of the disease. The most dreaded is CATGATATGAAA Syndrome (chip across the green and then across the green again and again), a desperate, jabbing affliction that has defied all medical attempts at a cure. Alternative medecine has been tried; our picture at left shows a faith healer trying to cure a little jerk by the laying on of hands.Another deeply feared manifestation sees sufferers actually whiff chip shots by hitting the ground eight inches behind the ball. The most commonly accepted treatment is Texaswedgingzone, an over-the-counter remedy served in pro shops all over the world. This involves the use of a prescription putter from distances up to 90 yards from the green. While it has proven successful on some of the manicured courses of the US and Spain, it is a disaster on bumpy or uphill terrain and even less successful where there is sand or water in front of the green. It can also cause red flushes when other golfers note what you’re using.  The most famous sufferer was Aussie golfer Peter Senior, who won the South Australian Open as a 19-year-old, but who by 1984 was suffering the most terrible affliction of chipping yips the pro-circuit had seen. His home-made solution and survival instinct led to a cross-handed method of chipping that was ugly but effective. Senior's chipping recovered with his left-hand-below-right method and so did his fortunes in Europe.  Others have recommended cross-handed or claw grips, use of a putting-style stroke, tying a live duck to the club head to slow down the swing and many other quack remedies. But such... approaches are short-term methods which won’t stop the epidemic spreading, authorities believe. "The fact is," said leading sports psychologist Professor Honour Couch, speaking from her Harley Street offfice (left), "it’s all in the mind. The touted cures are just temporary, a bit like a drunk putting a band-aid on a broken leg. Ultimately the leg’s still broken and the drunk’s still got to get plastered."But Anyone For Tee has pledged that ITTTTTTCYA will examine both technical and psychological aids. A 64-inch belly-chipper modelled on John Daly’s waistline is being tested in clinical trials in Arizona this month  (below, after our publisher tried it). Another test programme is using catch phrases inscribed on club grips, reminding chippists of key disciplines, using words like: "Keep your head down sucker!"; "When the chips are down the chippists keep downing"; "Texas wedges are for faggots!" and "Jab at this ball and you’ll never see your children again."
Anyone For Tee is also pledging a vast sum of money, believed to run into several dollars, to any party that can cure its own shamed co-publisher of his long-running illness. "I’ve suffered enough," he commented while trying his latest technique of chipping with a seven iron down his inside trouser leg to stop excessive back swing, "now it’s time to stop the terror."Background: 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 bounced out. Additionally, certain professions tend to be afflicted such as musicians, dentists (AnyoneforTee has a list of alternative dentists in most areas, should you be worried – and you should be. Common giveaway signs are the same tooth being filled three times or the hypodermic syringe being pulled back up to ten times before being plunged in above the patient’s mouth and through the nose-bone), and ty.. typ... ty.... typis..... ty..pists. A message from the publisher: Want to help ITTTTTTCYA cure the chipping yips? Want to see Anyone For Tee’s publisher feel able to state his name in public again? Send your solution to the chipping yips to thechipsaredown@anyonefortee.com and we’ll publish the best remedies to a growing global audience. |
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