The yips is not only present in a sport like gymnastics, which requires an almost unparalleled degree of athleticism, but also in sports like archery and golf, which demand extraordinary mental fitness. In archery, it’s known as target panic, and in this episode of Losing Control, we explore the mental game of one of the world’s top archers, Paige Pearce, who has battled–and is currently managing–target panic. But it’s in golf that the term yips, used to describe an involuntary movement that interrupts a golfer’s putt, chip, or swing, is believed to have originated. Arguably, golf is also the sport in which the yips have been the most widely studied, and Justin talks it over with David Owen, who has been writing about golf for decades, and who has spent time with some of the top pros in the game, including none other than Tiger Woods.   

 

• Paige Pearce, a world champion, record-breaking professional archer and one of the top-ranked compound archers in the world 
• David Owen, a staff writer at The New Yorker, contributing editor at both Golf Digest and Popular Mechanics, and author of more than a dozen books, including four books about golf

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