You Hate To See It
PGA Championship 2024: Watch Johnson Wagner get the chipping yips on live TV if you dare
Scottie Scheffler is the undisputed World No. 1, but 2024 has also been the year of Johnson Wagner in golf. The three-time PGA Tour winner has become a darling of Golf Twitter for his entertaining Golf Channel segments in which he recreates tournament situations on the course.
This really caught traction at the Players Championship, where Wagner showed off his arm by firing golf balls off a bank to mimic the bounce a Rory McIlroy drive took into a water hazard. He also went deep into the trees at Quail Hollow last week to recreate that wild free drop Xander Schauffele got. And we had Wagner on The Loop podcast to discuss this and he revealed that unfortunately (and not surprisingly) Augusta National wouldn't let him do this stuff during the Masters.
But Wagner is back in action, literally, at this week's PGA Championship at Valhalla. Although his choice to recreate a Xander Schauffele pitch shot on No. 4 from Day 1 backfired. As Wagner got set up to attempt the shot he mentioned he's developed the chipping yips of late. And then he did this:
Yikes. After a few failed attempts, Wagner gave up. Poor guy.
As the "Live From" gang points out, this is a PGA Tour winner struggling like this. Golf! What a sick sport!
But the yips can get everyone (even Tiger Woods for a brief period). And it's a nasty affliction you wouldn't wish on even your worst enemy. So good luck with that, Johnson. And maybe stick to demonstrating full shots—or Scheffler getting arrested—for the rest of the week.
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