Two of the most tumultuous golf shots of last season were surely the two short putts that Rory McIlroy missed during the course of the last three holes of the US Open at Pinehurst, costing him the chance of depriving Bryson DeChambeau of the title. As we look forward to the forthcoming Masters Tournament at Augusta, there is every chance of some sort of repeat. (I do not necessarily mean one involving McIlroy.)
Nine years ago, Ernie Els began the tournament with a nine at the opening hole, this brought about because he took six putts, not one of them longer than three feet. As an example of the yips, it could hardly have been worse. The origins of the word ‘yips’ are not clear but it is thought the term was popularised by Tommy Armour, the Scottish professional who established his career in America before winning the US Open (at Oakmont, where it will be in June and where Els won it in 1994), the USPGA Championship and the Open Championship. Armour said that when a golfer has the yips, he “blacks out, loses sight of the ball and hasn’t the remotest idea of what to do with the putter or, occasionally, that he is holding a putter at all”.
Which sounds precisely like what happened to Peter Alliss in 1967, on his last playing appearance at Augusta. The late Ryder Cup veteran and BBC commentator was playing with Gene Littler. They reached the 11th green in the second round. With his third shot, Alliss putted up to within six feet of the cup. “Then God knows what happened,” he wrote in his book Reflections On A Life Well Lived, co-authored with Bill Elliott.
“My next putt went 15 feet past, the next ended up four feet to the right, the next missed the hole by a good six inches…eventually, my brain all scrambled, the ball dropped at last. There was an awkward silence before Littler remarked, ‘What the f… are you doing? How many was that for the hole?’ I think we eventually settled on six putts, so a quadruple-bogey eight for the hole.”
In 1979, Fuzzy Zoeller became only the third man to win the Masters on his debut (the others being Horton Smith in its first year and Gene Sarazen in its second), and he did it by beating Tom Watson and Ed Sneed in the first Masters to be decided by a sudden-death playoff. Watson was the big name, of course, but Sneed was the nearly man: in regulation play he had missed par putts from five, four and five feet, respectively, on the final three holes.
To somewhat reprise the Ernie Els anecdote, in 1988 Seve Ballesteros, who won the tournament twice, four-putted the 16th green at Augusta. Asked how he’d done that, he replied: “I miss, I miss, I miss, I make.” A very succinct summary of failure. Of course, such errors are not always fatal. Three years ago Scottie Scheffler, favourite to win for the third time next week, took three putts from five feet on the final green. The good news was that he had a five-shot lead at the time.
I would be surprised if there were not some short-miss shockers this time around.
You can follow Robert Green on Twitter @robrtgreen and enjoy his other blog f-factors.com as well as his golf archive on robertgreen-golf.com
