In Focus/The Yips: Johnny Watterson talk to Prof Paul McCrory about the dreaded yips and how they have ruined many a famous playing career

We all know what the yips are. They are a character failing, a humiliation. Bernhard Langer had them. Johnny Miller couldn't control them. Nor could Peter Aliss or Ian Baker Finch. The yips are a black hole. They say that when a bus hit the legendary Ben Hogan, it could have ended his career. It didn't. The yips did. They say that Miller's face contorts when he thinks of how the affliction damaged his game. But when they talk of the yips they speak in voodoo terms, of a problem that transcends even the word of the golfing bible: technique, practice and repetition.

Urban legend has it that the yips are what happens to golfers with feeble minds and it leaves them choking over 12-inch putts. The yips are for people who can't hack the stress, hate the pressure and feel so anxious over a short putt that they are as likely to hit it four feet past from three feet as they are to get it into or even close to the cup.

The yips are destructive, a malign influence. They corrode a normally strong game, pick holes in scores and turn golf from a pleasure activity into the sort of experience you get when watching a horror movie.

The only difference is that it's your partners who are looking for cover as they watch you fearfully stand over another ball from "gimme" range in the certain knowledge you have absolutely no control of what is going to happen with your hands.

The yips are terrifying and they don't only happen to golfers; they happen to darts players, singers and writers. Ever hear of the darts player who couldn't physically let go of the dart? It's true.The yips. And, eh, they are currently incurable.

Forget the nonsense in golf magazines, the glossy pictures and step-by-step diagrams for the low-to-medium handicapper. Magazines make claims but they cannot, if you have the neurological disorder version of the yips, cure you. They may advise some psychological confection or stroke readjustments or stick a longer putter in your belly and change everything, but if you have the serious yips, there is currently no cure.

The definition of the problem has evolved over time. It is characterised simply as a phenomenon of involuntary movements affecting golfers. It varies from what scientists call the neurological disorder of dystonia to the psychological disorder of "choking".

"It can be two different things," says Prof Paul McCrory, who is the editor of the British Journal of Sports Medicine and recently lectured at a seminar in the Royal College of Surgeons, Dublin, on the subject.

"One is an anxiety state, when people choke making a putt. And that's what most people think because if you read golf magazines you will see that people believe it is a psychological thing linked to anxiety.

"But the other is a neurological problem where the brain does not co-ordinate the movement properly and this has got nothing to do with psychology. It has got to do with the connections in the brain itself.

"Famous players such as Langer and others, who really have major problems when they are putting, actually have this other condition, which is more of a neurological problem."

Physically, the symptoms of yips are jerks, tremors or freezing in the hands and forearms that research has found will add 4.9 strokes for every 18 holes played, catastrophic for low-handicap players.

The most likely group to become affected are golfers who average 75 rounds per year, although it has also been shown that many yips-affected golfers decrease their playing time or quit the game altogether to avoid exposure to what is a hugely embarrassing and non-discriminatory problem.

"The golfers that get the true yips tend to be older, tend to be in their 30s or 40s and have had a long history of playing golf," says McCrory.

"It is not something that happens when they take up the sport. Generally they are good players with an average handicap of around four. But they are not the absolute top-line players. It tends to be, although not exclusively, very good amateur players who seem to be most affected.

"We would have done surveys looking at mature golfers out there. Anything between a quarter and a half of them report problems when they are putting. Some just get too anxious when they putt and some have neurological problems. The only thing that remains an unanswered question is why it happens. We know what part of the brain is not working properly but we don't know why it suddenly goes wrong in older players."

Langer is probably the most famous yips battler and had to face the problem of his hand refusing to follow the instructions the brain was sending. They appeared to strike the ball of their own accord. He has changed his grip and the putter numerous times in an attempt to cure the problem, and while he has been mostly successful, the tendency has coloured his career. In the 1991 Ryder Cup, the two-times Masters champion famously missed a five-foot putt that would have tied the Ryder Cup and allowed the European team to retain the trophy.

"Langer had some success for a while with a broom-handle putter but then fell back again. It is not as though you change something and it works better forever afterwards," explains McCrory. "The problem is still there underneath it all and the person goes up and down often unpredictably. I haven't seen Langer as a patient but I would say he's tried simple things. He moved to the broom handle because that gives a new putting stroke and forces the brain to discard what it would do with a conventional putter and start afresh. He will do that hundreds of thousands of times as part of his practice and gradually the same dystonic problem he had originally will recur. Yes, he can change it again but it is a very difficult thing because you can't keep changing for ever. Every change involves an enormous amount of practice and repetition to make things happen and you can't keep running off and changing as well as maintaining a career.

"Ian Baker Finch, for example, won a British Open title and then disappeared off the face of the earth. He just can't string together rounds any more. Within a matter of weeks or months, he went from one of the world's best golfers to not being able to play a competitive round.

"I mean, he knows how to play. You don't lose that ability overnight but something has happened to him that affects the co-ordination of that movement. They lose control. Their hands stiffen and tighten up so that the putting is no longer fluid. The ball no longer goes in the direction they want it to go, too far or too short. They then try to correct it and that makes it worse. The professional would know that he can't do it. All the public would know is that he missed the putt or keeps missing putts. For some guys it is catastrophic. It is the end of their careers. Some adapt and work in other areas of the industry and others disappear without trace or go back to playing club golf. For recreational golfers of around four, it just means that their handicap blows out."

Psychology does have a role for those players whose problems are caused by anxiety, those many people who simply choke because of nerves. There are many examples. The tennis player Amelie Mauresmo spoke openly about her nerves affecting her performance when under pressure and for years it cost her Grand Slam tournaments and poor runs in her own country's biggest event, the French Open.

She has now overcome the problem and this year won Wimbledon for the first time.

Greg Norman, who threw away his fair share of major trophies (he blew a six-stroke lead in the final round of the 1996 Masters and lost the tournament to Nick Faldo by five strokes), refused to believe his miss record at the big events was anything to do with nerves. "He never saw himself as choking," says McCrory. "He just thought he had bad luck in the final rounds. People have different perceptions."

But psychology will not work for the neurological problem. Where anti-anxiety medicine may help choking, it won't work for the other category and can lead to confusion as people will try almost anything for a cure. But it has little chance of working.

The golfer with the yips must work out which one of the two scenarios it is. Everyone can't be labelled with anxiety or diagnosed as having untreatable dystonia. Understanding what the problem is at the beginning is crucially important.

"It is not just golfers who get affected," he says. "We see it in darts players where they can't let go of the dart when they are trying to do it. We see it incredibly often in musicians, guitarists, piano players, corn players, where the muscles fail to co-ordinate.

"And it's not so much all sports because it needs to be something where the movement is very repetitive. Putting is one movement and driving is a particular technique that you do over and over again. It has to be repetitive and in a sport that requires fine co-ordination. That is why (golfers) putting and darts players are predominantly the ones affected."

In Miller's 2004 book I Call the Shots, his candid account gives some idea of what actually happens. Now a golf commentator for US Network NBC, Miller explains the feeling of being out of control and the fear associated with facing that three-footer.

"I choked so many times myself over the years that it's a joke. To me, it wasn't the result of a character flaw. It wasn't that I lacked courage. Choking isn't like that at all. It's merely stress manifesting itself mentally and physically. The truth is, the yips are the biggest reason I don't play on the Champions Tour. Why be in denial about it? The way some tour players react to the suggestion they choked, you'd think they'd run out of a burning building and left their family behind . . .

"My most extreme case of choking, in case you missed it, was against Jack Nicklaus in a Shell's Wonderful World of Golf match in 1997. I'd looked forward to playing the match for a long time because it was at the Olympic Club in San Francisco, and I was playing against my hero. But I happened to have the worst putting day of my life. I three-putted so many times - seven in all - that when the show was edited for TV, they mercifully eliminated five of them.

"It was worse than embarrassing. From tee to green I played as well as Jack, but on the greens it was like I was holding a snake in my hands. I couldn't make a three-footer. There is no worse feeling than standing over a short putt, knowing you've got no chance to make it." Both versions of the yips are anxiety affected. That, however, is where the similarities begin and end.

Neurological problems or just choking?

Greg Norman

In the 1996 Masters final round, he lost a six-stroke lead by the time he arrived at the 12th and finally lost the major title to Nick Faldo.

Johnny Miller

Facing Jack Nicklaus in a Shell's Wonderful World of Golf match in 1997 at the Olympic Club in San Francisco, Miller had the worst putting day of his life and at seven holes three-putted.

Mark O'Meara

Throughout the 1990s O'Meara was considered one of the best clutch putters in the game. By 2003 he had dropped out of the top 100 in putting and was outside the top 125 on the money list for the first time since 1981.

Bernhard Langer

The German Masters winner once four-putted from three feet. "At times, my putting was so bad that people were coming to watch me in the manner of those who go to motor racing to see a crash," he said. "I have come through the yips three times. Technique, hard work and character have played a part but, without the strength of the Lord, I would not have made it."