The yips are detrimental to any golfer, and almost every golfer has suffered from them at some point.
In this week’s GOLF Subpar episode, Joel Dahmen explained some of his clashes with the yips, which included the punch-out yips and the 7-iron yips. (“Sahith Theegala also has that as well, right?” Dahmen asked. Yes, he does.)
But Dahmen’s yips go beyond the golf course. Like, for instance, he’s currently battling the autograph yips.
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“Oh, bad; it’s not great,” he said. “I’ve never pretended to have a great signature. My handwriting is putrid. Like you think if you can hit a golf ball you can probably sign your name, but I struggle with that whole deal. But yeah, the cursive ‘J’ looks OK, but I freeze on the ‘E’ right now. The pen just stops for a full second and then it will go and get a little sloppy. … Let’s say you sign for 15 or 20 kids after the round. Right now I’m taking twice as long as other guys to get through this line and it is not pretty either.”
But his yips don’t end there. He also has the parking yips.
Dahmen explained that his trusty caddie, Geno Bonnalie, usually drives when they are at tournaments, and Dahmen’s wife usually drives if they are running places together. But when he’s solo and faced with a big parking lot with lots of options, it takes some time for him to find a spot for his 2017 Ford Explorer.
“I let the car choose where it wants to park,” Dahmen said. “Sometimes you just have to let the car go and sometimes it takes a little bit longer to find the spot it fits in. I’ve had the parking yips for a while. I’m a solid driver. My wife calls me a grandpa driver. I’m not ripping 80 around the 101 or going 55 on Scottsdale Road, but I get into these parking lots and I just can’t pull the trigger on a spot.
“And it’s not like I can’t fit the car in there, I’m a confident driver,” he continued. “But sometimes there is a car seat, you got to have room for those, and you try to get the kids in the backseat and then you gotta find the passenger seat with wider room than the other side, and it just takes a little longer.”
You can listen to Dahmen’s complete Subpar appearance here, or watch the video below.
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