Golf: Battle for more yeps than yips

By CHRIS RATTUE

You don't have to know Jeff Wagner to see the agonies that have gone into his golf career.

The stocky 38-year-old from New South Wales has a putting technique about as different as it gets.

Wagner, once Australia's top junior and ranked in the top 10 players in American college golf, has had a career affected by the most severe case of the yips.

Everyone who has played golf, from the heinous to the genius, knows the frustration of the game.

Wagner, who exited the New Zealand Open yesterday with a 10-over total, knows it more than most. But he has emerged with his sunny nature intact, and gets a special tip of the cap from those who respect determination to succeed.

His old American college clubmate, New Zealand professional Paul Devenport, reckons many players with less resilience than Wagner would have quit years ago.

"He was All-American, at the same time as Phil Mickelson, Billy Mayfair, people like that," says Devenport.

"But he got the yips pretty bad. He's tried every solution under the sun.

"You hear murmurs in the crowd when people see him on the green, but we all know what it's like.

"We accept whatever it takes to get that ball in the hole. That puts money in the bank."

Wagner's putting build-up starts with the arm action of a lawn bowler as he gets a feel for his shot.

He putts right-handed from distance, but close to the hole he gets on the other side of his long-handled putter and claws his way down the shaft.

Bent over, with the blade tilted and poking towards him, he takes quick aim and fires.

Wagner can be a decent putter these days, although you just know the torture that's gone into a technique that might turn up in Brad Faxon's nightmares.

Until he went to college in the United States, Wagner was regarded as a "freak" on the greens, as he puts it.

"People can exaggerate, but I was very good," he says.

One foul stroke proved to be an unfortunate turning point.

Playing his first college game, Wagner faced a putt of 1.5m to go three under.

The ball "exploded" off the face, charged across the green, and into a bunker. This is the yip he remembers most vividly.

"I mean it didn't just miss, it was in the bunker."

He believes the stress of being away from home found its way into his putting stroke, and took root.

"From that moment on, never once right-handed could I stand over a short putt and not have a sensation of extreme nerves ... just this shaking feeling.

"I've tried everything possible. I've never laid down on a psychiatrist's couch, but I've been in their comfortable chairs a few times.

"I've tried hypnosis, rebirth, meditation ... I've spoken to Buddhist monks looking for enlightenment.

"I've never been an angry person, but I was in tears in college."

Did any of this achieve anything?

"No."

At one time, his solution included putting right-handed for right-to-left putts and left-handed for left-to-right.

Somewhere along the way, during a skins game, he struck on the present solution.

"No one else does it like me. I've got a monopoly," he laughs.

It hasn't been all bad for Wagner, who lies 92nd on the Australasian Order of Merit with $19,000 in earnings.

In 1996, he was 18th on the Australasian Order of Merit, third in the Australian Masters, and had four seconds in Asia which put him fifth on their money list.

But he says: "Michael Campbell, Philip Tataurangi, Grant Waite ... maybe I could have achieved something like those guys.

"The way I putt now has saved my career, but I could have gone so much further if I hadn't had to fight these demons.

"Still, I have a wonderful chip-and-bunker game, and some guys don't have that."

Devenport has nothing but admiration for his team-mate from the same Houston college that Scottish golf legend Colin Montgomerie attended.

Devenport says: "A lot of players would have given up a long time ago. He'll do whatever to get the ball in the hole, whatever people say about him. He's got a strong character."