Has Tiger got the yips?

Tiger Woods is suffering from more than just back spasms, Gary Player has claimed.

In an interview with Gulf News, Player said he believes Woods is being afflicted by “the cancer of golf, the yips”.

“The thing that concerns me about Tiger’s comeback, which nobody is saying much about, is when he was playing a little while ago, he had the yips very badly with the chipping,” said Gary Player, ahead of his second annual Gary Player Invitational in the UAE at the Saadiyat Beach Golf Club in Abu Dhabi on Monday.

“He was hitting a chip shot in front of him or hitting it over the green. I am so used to seeing him having a chip and he puts the ball two feet from the hole.

“To see him chipping the way he does, there’s no way he can win. No way at all.”

Player believes Woods’ decline can be traced all the way back to his 2000 US Open victory, when he won by 15 shots.

“If he’d never have had another lesson after winning the US Open by 15 shots, I firmly believe he would have gone on and broken every conceivable record in the game,” he said.

“A man called Henry Longhurst, the greatest TV announcer that ever lived, said something interesting: “When you get the yips, you die with the yips.” Very few people recover from the yips.

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“If you look at Ernie Els, he had this beautiful golf swing, but he got the yips. Look at him in the past 40 tournaments. He’s really struggled to make the cut.

“The yips is a destroyer; it’s the cancer of golf. Everybody I know got it. Only Jack Nicklaus and I didn’t and I don’t know why. I can’t explain it.”

He added: “I don’t think he’ll win another major, but I sincerely hope he does. Nothing would give me a greater thrill than Tiger winning another major, but it’s an awfully big task. He has a monumental challenge ahead.”

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