Let’s get right to what you need to know: Parker McLachlin can cure your chipping yips. Will he guarantee it? No, technically no one can, but he has a pretty sweet track record.
“I have helped over 100 people out of the chipping yips,” said McLachlin on this week’s episode of GOLF’s Subpar podcast. “Probably 50 in person and 50 have gone through my online course and yips program. They have sent notes like, ‘Dude, I had the yips for a while and with your program, it’s gone.'”
If you’re still reading this, you are well aware the yips can terrorize golfers. And McLachlin, a former pro-turned-teacher, is a short-game specialist and goes by the moniker of Short Game Chef. Much of his Subpar episode was dedicated to golf instruction, tips and things amateurs can learn from, but perhaps the most intriguing segment focused on the yips.
The ‘Short Game Chef’ will change how you approach shots around the green
For starters, he answered these important questions: Can the chipping yips be cured? And if so, is it more of a technical or mental problem?
“I think that’s a really good question. [Gary] McCord and I have actually had a lot of good conversation on this,” McLachlin said. “McCord has taken a deep dive into the mental side of the yips. He’s just fascinated by it. I have taken a deep dive into the technical side of the yips. I think at the end of the day it’s a combination of both, but it also depends on how long that person has been in that chipping-yips state where they are frozen and they are fearful.”
McLachlin added he’s had several Division I golfers come to him and say they’ve been stuck with the yips, some for as long as a year.
“With a couple of technique changes and philosophy changes, all of a sudden they are chipping it awesome,” he said. “But they don’t have the same amount of scar tissue of someone who comes to me and says, ‘I’ve been in this for 12 years. I finally found your stuff and now I feel like I’m making progress.’ … But we can spend 20 to 30 hours, and they are way better than when they started, but you can see it still present itself every now and again when they flinch or have that little moment of where it’s like, I’m scared of the ground, and I yip it. For that person it takes some mental work as well.”
Fixing the yips is a rewarding payoff for McLachlin, too. One noteworthy student came recommended by former PGA Tour player Bryce Molder, who told McLachlin, “This guy has the worst chipping yips of all time.”
Molder even drew up a contract for the lessons.
“If Parker can fix you, you will pay Parker 10 percent of everything you make [at your home club],” Molder said, according to McLachlin. “Sure enough, I got Venmos from this guy. Fifty bucks, ‘had a great day on the course, chipped it close a bunch of times.’ It’s amazing. It’s pretty fun to see these people exit out of being so fearful of something. But if we can get them out of the yips part and the fearful part of it into serviceable, that’s a huge win.”
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