1 in sports, especially golf, a condition when a player is not able to hit, throw, or kick the ball well, usually because of nervousness:
He gave up competitive golf after developing a serious case of the yips on his putting.
"People have the yips about a conservative owning a newspaper in a liberal town," she said.
2 If an animal such as a dog yips, it makes a short, sharp cry:
For almost 40 years, he has been hearing and recording the sounds of nature, quiet moments interrupted only by grunts of sea lions, yips of coyotes and rumbling of glaciers.
It sounded like a food fight in a dolphinarium - full of yips and yodels and wild splashing.
He gave a yip of dismay.
You see quite a few guys get the yips, not only in the golf swing but a ton of guys with putting and chipping.
In the latest study researchers recruited 25 golfers, who complained of the yips and studied them making dozens of putts of varying lengths, measuring the electrical activity in their muscles.
The conscious mind is often a drag on many activities. Too much thinking can give a golfer the yips.
When they had forged nine points ahead of Liverpool after 29 games, it looked all over. But then Leeds started to get the yips and Liverpool steadily closed the gap.
If the tongue closes most of the way, but doesn't pass the magic 1.5mm boundary, the result is a glide (as in yip).
