The Haney Project

The Haney Project drives me crazy. 

Barkley has the dreaded yips. They normally manifest themselves with the putter. Barkley is unique, he has the yips in his down swing. The yips are cruel. I remember the day I aquired them, I still have this clear picture in my mind of that day. I was young, living in Houston and it was the oil boom and Urban Cowboy era. 

People forget that John Travolta catapulted the disco era and then completely reversed the trend with Urban Cowboy. To live in Houston at that time as a young professional was well, really something special. At this time in my life I was young and single and I would close the bar Friday night, two step dancing or you know, maybe something better. 

I had this regular golf game on Saturday and Sunday. Saturday was Memorial Park. We had a pool of about a dozen players but we typically teed up two groups, and our time was always between 7:00 and 9:00 am. You had to draw for tee times the morning before. 

A typical Saturday morning for me was a few hours sleep, and I would be eating breakfast out of a styrofoam package walking down the first fairway. It caught up with me. Yips. 

We always played group $1 skins and rabbits plus pick up games and side bets. Every one was handicapped but no shots were allocated on the rabbit holes. These were six hole rabbits and they carried over. So you could birdie the last hole and maybe win 30 bucks, on the day, playing like crap. A rabbit is earned when you pick up a skin and then keep that skin by tying or beating everyone else thru the rabbit hole. 

I picked up a leg/skin on the rabbit and proceeded to number six. This is a standard par three, over a bit of water but it was my nominal 150 yard 7 iron. A little wind quartering in , pin in the middle of the green on an up slope. I played a med high fade in there, dead stoney 3 feet left of the hole, left to right putt. I pull jerked that sucker 4-5 feet by the hole, missed the come backer, walked off with four. From that point on I had the yips, the shorter the putt, the worse was my stroke. This was at the exact same time I hit my prime ball striking. I hit it where I aimed it and that is a wonderful thing. It lasted several years. 

I finally offset the yips by putting lefthanded crosshanded. Just recently I found a classic Palmer putter, two sided, in a used club drum! I can putt with this thing really really well. 

So I had to completely change what I was doing to beat the yips. I noticed that I could make those short ones backhanded left handed. I ran with it. Tom Watson has the yips. Once you've had em, you've got em. 

The only player I know that has won a major title after the yips is Bernhardt Langer. My hero, he won the Masters after the yips. He completely invented some bizarre way to putt. It worked. 

So that brings me to Haney and Barkley. I know Haney makes a lot of money teaching golf but he does not know jack about yips. The only way to beat the yips is reinvent yourself. If you gave me Barkley for the time Haney has had him. I think I could solve his problem.

The first thing I would do is teach him to hook the snot out of it. An exagerated inside out swing.  After he memorized that I would slowly move the swing plane out to square. Then I would teach him how to hit an inside out fade. By the time I was done he would have no idea how to yip a downswing. Just my opinion of course...