The dreaded yips that plagued Ernie Els on a couple of occasions last year apparently have carried over into the new year. Els’ par putt from 18 inches missed the hole entirely on his last hole in the first round of the BMW South African Open, the Irish Times reported.
“It’s brutal,” Andrew Coltart of Sky Sports said. “He is a lot more comfortable from 15, 20 feet. The expectation level is lower, no pressure on himself, and he can breathe normally and just go through the stroke no problem at all. You come into the three or four-foot range and things are completely different.”
Video has not yet surfaced. Last year, at the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship, video of Els missing the hole with a virtual tap-in went viral. “The perfect yip stroke you’ve ever see in your life,” he called it.
He also yipped a putt at the CIMB Classic a few weeks later.
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