PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – Most professionals won’t acknowledge the “y” word, but when you’ve dealt with the yips as long as Bernhard Langer there’s no use in trying to avoid the obvious.
Langer, who is playing this week’s Players Championship by virtue of his Senior Players title last year, said he endured his first bout with the yips in 1976 at the Portuguese Open.
“The greens were lightning fast, and I wasn't used to that,” Langer said. “I grew up on pretty slow greens in Germany and developed the yips right there and then, the first two or three weeks on tour.