If you aren’t familiar with golf let me clue you in to some things avid golfers fear. In fact, a couple of things scare golfers so much they will engage in all sort of self-mental mind games to flush any thought of them. Saying it out loud? If you hear a golfer admit to having the “Shanks” (hitting the ball with the hosel/shaft of the club) or the “Yips” is an open admission they’re in deep trouble. Or their game is. That my friends is why Trump admitting out loud to a crowd at a rally he has something of a case of “Yips’ is actually a big freaking deal.
This article from The Hill starts off with Maggie Haberman commenting last night that Trump is rattled. In fact she goes so far as to say that after two assassination attempts Trump is ‘anxious’:
Her comments came in response to the former president saying he was “ready to start duking it out,” and joking about having a “yip” problem after appearing to be startled by movement in the audience during a rally Wednesday. Haberman, who attended the campaign event, told CNN’s Boris Sanchez that Trump appeared “on edge.”
“Looking at his face was very telling, because you see his eyes dart off to the right, and he jerks his body, and he says it that he thought that somebody was coming up to the stage,” she said on CNN’s “The Source.”
“He is on edge,” the New York Times correspondent added, noting that she noticed him flinch. “For him to say that he has a yip problem, which is an acknowledgement of anxiety, is pretty unusual, for a guy who likes to project strength at all times.”
I wondered how long this would take. Since Butler Trump might have talked about ‘God having spared him’ but that’s pure, unadulterated bullshit. I’m agnostic and Trump doesn’t believe in God any more than I do. In fact he’s made statements that effectively tell Evangelical “Christians” HE should be the one they look to for guidance. (Trump as you know like’s Saviors that didn’t get themselves Crucified. And in his mind what kind of a ‘loser’ God would allow that to happen to his son?) No, Trump knows and has known ever since the adrenaline wore off at the ER he was LUCKY.
He got nicked on the ear. Whether it was from an actual bullet or from shrapnel (I still say evidence indicates that’s the most likely) he only got a nick on the ear. He’ll never allow the medical records from the ER doctors that treated him to be released but it was a nick on the ear. That however doesn’t match is “took a bullet for Democracy” line of bullshit hence the ear diaper at the RNC and for a while afterwards. The more time that has passed, and the more that’s been learned Trump knows just how lucky he was. Crazy as it may sound to you as much as I hate Trump I’m grateful he was so lucky. The LAST thing I want is him dying in a manner that gives MAGAs a chance to Martyr him!
In any case last Sunday another goober presumably wanted to take his own shot. This new asshat, a onetime Trump voter who apparently felt Trump betrayed him by not delivering on promises is older and a gun nut. However proficient he might have been earlier in life he’s clearly devolved. His aborted attempt (he got spotted, shot at by the Secret Service and fled before he ever got a glimpse of his would be target) was so amateurish as to be clownish. So once again Trump was lucky. Even if this asshat had gotten off a shot or two HE would probably have missed too.
But all this has gotten into Trump’s head to the point where it’s getting noticed. He hates to read but I can easily see him wanting to read up on all the paranoid precautions Saddam took, or Putin takes. Not drinking anything that comes from a bottle/can with an un-cracked seal. Having the child of his cook take a bit of meals before digging in himself. That kind of thing. I’d say flinching over some movement from a rally attendee he saw out of the corner of his eye indicates Trump is scared these days. And hates himself for being so.
I’ve not been able to play golf for years (long story) but loved the game most of my life even though the local Country Club wouldn’t allow some lower-middle class kid like me onto their beloved course. What any golfer can tell you is the Shanks or the Yips are like a virus. One for which there is no cure. When it comes to the Yips, (they can manifest in either chipping or putting and in the worst cases for a golfer both) few can master them. They are almost always permanent and the best one can hope for is to get to a point where they only happen some of the time.
Those afflicted sure as hell don’t want to talk about it, unless privately to a golf pro or a shrink. Yes, serious golfers will seek out help from a Psychiatrist or Psychologist to deal with the Yips. That’s how big a deal it is. Pros? Who don’t have a choice but to deal with reporters? They’d rather have a root canal without anesthesia than answer questions about it. To say that AWFUL word out loud. That Trump blurted it out says more than you know.
He’s running scared. No doubt about it. For damned sure it will affect his actual golf game. He’ll be imagining assassins behind every tree. We all know he cheats like hell. He might make a playing partner tap in a one foot putt but he’ll give himself a twenty footer. Or claim multiple ‘mulligans’ during the course of the round whenever he hits a bad shot. But it’s fun to imagine his Yips also causing him to develop a case of the Shanks. Or just plain “Whiffs” which is swinging at the ball and COMPLETELY missing. Looking around at playing partners or his Secret Service detail and seeing them fighting to hold back laughter will ENRAGE him. Good. The more humiliation the better.
But he’s got POLITICAL Yips now and it’s noticeable. And as I said earlier people can see it. Trump knows people can see it, hence his trying to joke about it. I can’t wait for someone who knows a bit about golf to interview his niece Mary Trump who’s a trained Clinical Psychologist with more knowledge of the Trump family dynamics than any other pundit. She has after all lived it. But trust me on this when I tell you that Trump admitting what he did, using a word golfers fear to speak is a huge freaking deal.
Trump is more than rattled. More than scared. He’s terrified.
I don’t s’pose MAGA will go so far as to reject him for finally admitting he’s got a characteristic of a human following traumatic events, but that’s an interesting prospect! “Will be wild!”
Sadly MAGAs know even less about golf and Yip and Shanks that even the average non golfer. Golf really isn’t their thing. If I got the cold shoulder out at the Country Club (I could fish with my pal Mike while his dad played three or four times a week but NOT actually golf with other kids. Or even after a while take part in informal putting and chipping contests on the green next to the pro shop. THAT was an awkward conversation because the Pro was a member of our church and his wife the organist!) a MAGA would get escorted out by cops! As for playing municipal courses even a couple hundred bucks for crappy set of used clubs and forty or fifty bucks for green fees (and more for a cart) isn’t something they’d do. No, that kind of money goes for GUNS, or stuff for their Monster Truck project.
But Trump is a hard core golfer. Not nearly as good as he claims but he’s really into the game. It’s an obsession with him second probably only to one day getting it on with his daughter Ivanka. Yips are a HUGE thing for him and I’d be willing to bet he’s got a major case on the golf course now!
Even IF his MAGAs know what the Yips are, they won’t care. When the whole diaper and BO thing went public, what did they do? Carried signs saying “real men wear diapers.” They love him no matter what.
He’s been running scared his entire life.
Oh, and I almost forgot all the MAGA who referred to Simone Biles as weak and worthless for taking a mental health break to deal with the “twisties!” Or, the nasty remarks about any other sports or entertainment personality who takes their mental health seriously. A break sure-as-hell helped Biles!! 🥇🥇🥇🥇🥇
Yippie-yi-oh! D—ump’s a chewed up mental bit. He’s “… got [the] POLITICAL Yips … it’s noticeable … people can see it … Trump knows … hence … joke about it … admitting … is a huge freaking deal … [he’s] … more than rattled … scared. He’s terrified…” Yippie- yi-oh- ki- yay! This is the reveal, the bit that’ll do some phucking damage to D—ump! He won’t be able to corral it, to fully break it in, once his yips do a bolt!
Heh. I’m imagining “Bob’s Burgers” when I read about the “yips.” It all started on that show when one of Bob’s regulars and occasional handyman, Teddy, asks Bob exactly how he flips the burgers. Bob starts fixating on his technique and becomes so obsessed that he literally forgets how to flip a burger and Teddy mentions that Bob’s got the yips. (Bob ultimately cures his yips with a very bizarre, and somewhat ewww solution–somehow he acquires a pair of underwear from his rival, Jimmy Pesto, and wears them. I started writing something else, but I didn’t want to inflict that horrid notion on the rest of this site’s readers. I’m still trying to bleach the idea from my own brain.)