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BRIEF RESEARCH REPORT article
Front. Sports Act. Living
Sec. Biomechanics and Control of Human Movement
Volume 7 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fspor.2025.1563370
Yips: An Investigation of Causes and Treatments in the Context of Golf
Provisionally accepted
Kian-Taj Claire Afrassiabian, DO 1*
Bisundev Mahato, MD 2,3,4
Ulrick Vieux, DO 5 Nikhil Palekar, MD 6- 1 Castle Point VA Medical Center, Wappingers Falls, NY, United States
- 2 Garnet Health Medical Center-Catskills, Harris, NY, United States
- 3 Nilux Clinic, Hollywood, CA, United States
- 4 Nilux Clinic, Manhattan, NY, United States
- 5 Hackensack Meridian Health-Hackensack University Medical Center, Hackensack, NJ, United States
- 6 Stony Brook University Hospital, Stony Brook, NY, United States
When a skill is lost, this can impact a person's career and psychological well-being. As this is the case with yips, preventing, treating, and curing them is important. This study was prompted by limited information available on yips, specifically regarding etiologies. The intent of this study was to utilize surveys with both medical review of system and psychological questioning to identify commonalities in afflicted players. This could then provide considerations of causes and guide future research.The study recruited experienced golfers for in-person surveys and stroke demonstrations from 1/26/2019 to 3/28/2020. The analyses included statistical methods and discussion. These methods included Chi-Squared Adjusted Yates and Fisher's Exact Test targeted towards smaller sample sizes.Finding participants was difficult and resulted in a small sample size (n=14). The study had 4 yip subjects and 10 controls. Statistical methods for small sample sizes found few associations. However, Fisher's exact test showed negative associations between yips and sore throats (p=0.0050), fever (p=0.0150), and physical trauma (0.0150).Chi-Squared Corrected Yate's Test also showed significance for fever (p=0.0328), sore throat (p=0.0105), and physical trauma (p=0.0328). Qualitative data was also highlighted in the study, including tabulating treatments tried and the outcomes of participants.Yips cause problems, especially for those who have invested significant time into perfecting a skill. Continued research is warranted to solidify causes and effective treatments.
Keywords: yips, Golf, Sports, Movement, performance
Received: 19 Jan 2025; Accepted: 31 Mar 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Afrassiabian, DO, Mahato, MD, Vieux, DO and Palekar, MD. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Kian-Taj Claire Afrassiabian, DO, Castle Point VA Medical Center, Wappingers Falls, NY, United States
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.