After Rough Battle With 'Flinches,' Paul Goydos is Looking for Redemption

Goydos five-putted on the 71st hole two weeks ago, likely costing him a victory. But he's processed it, and he's ready for a new week on the Champions Tour.

ST. LOUIS - The entire episode was painful to watch, like Chuck Knoblauch throwing wildly to first, Tony Romo mishandling a snap or Fred Brown passing to James Worthy.

What Paul Goydos did on the 17th hole in the final round of the Ally Challenge in Grand Blanc, Mich. promises to be blooper material for years to come.

Goydos has had time to process it now, those five putts that likely cost him a trophy. But truth be told, he has not had time to fix it. And until he does, he can’t be absolutely sure it won’t happen again.

“I’ve kind of been battling flinches for about 20 years,” said Goydos, as he re-entered the ring at the PGA Tour Champions Ascension Charity Classic at Norwood Hills Country Club. “And it just popped up at the wrong time.”

Paul Goydos hasn't won on the Champions Tour since 2017.  / Getty Images

Moreover, it popped up at the worst time. The 59-year old Goydos was staring down his first win in six years. He carried a one-stroke lead to the par-3 17th, and landed his tee shot 18 feet from the flag. The birdie chance would be challenging, but par seemed secure.

Goydos watched his first putt slide past the hole, three feet long. And what happened next was a root canal. Four more putts later — five in all — he walked off the green with a triple-bogey 6 and a two-shot deficit.

Observers responded as if they were watching a public execution. Golf Channel analyst and long-time PGA Tour pro Lanny Wadkins offered: “I haven’t seen anything like that … I’m sorry to see that happen to him. Golf is mean. It can be cruel at times. It happens to a lot of good players.”

Vijay Singh, the crime scene’s beneficiary, went on to win the championship. To his credit, Goydos re-grouped to make par on 18, which under the circumstances has to be one of the great pars in golf history. “I had a 14-incher and I thought, ‘I don’t know if I can make this,’” Goydos said, half-jokingly.

In the end, Goydos settled for a 1-under 71 on the round and a disappointing tie for third. Not surprisingly, he summoned some humorous perspective afterward, posting a message on X (formerly Twitter) and assuring fans he was not suicidal. “Don’t feel bad. It’s a game,” Goydos tweeted. “Good news though, Ping said they will pay me to stop using their putters.”

Good stuff. But let’s not dismiss the palpable frustration of the circumstances, either. Goydos is a professional golfer, has been since 1989. He earned his PGA Tour card in 1993, has two PGA Tour wins to his credit and five Champions wins.

He once shot a 59 at the John Deere Classic and nearly won the Players Championship in 2010. Ironically, Goydos lost the playoff at TPC Sawgrass when he hit his tee shot in the water at — you guessed it — the par-3 17th. Oh, the humanity!

The point is, Goydos does this for a living, and his last win was at the PGA Tour Champions 3M Championship in 2017. And he has heard the rationale, the consoling words about the unpredictable nature of golf, how we’ve all been there. He appreciates those thoughts, but he’s not buying.

“I’ve heard a lot of that,” Goydos said. “And I don’t know if that’s true, per se. On TV, a chance to win a tournament, on the 17th hole on Sunday, and then kind of get the flinches? I don’t think it’s happened to a whole lot of people, I’ll be honest with you.”

Goydos makes a clear distinction between the “flinches” and the “yips” — the psychological barrier that keeps a player from executing an otherwise elementary skill. For instance, Knoblauch had a mental block about throwing to first base. It became a problem, an adventure and he eventually moved from second base to the outfield.

Over the years, from Sam Snead’s putting to Sergio Garcia’s “Long Island Waggle,” numerous golfers have famously battled the yips. But Goydos insists the “Atrocity at Ally” is not explained by nervous tension.

“That’s as bad as it's been, but I’ve been going through this at least since the mid-2000s,” Goydos said. “It’s one of the things that you deal with; I have flinches.

“There’s a difference between the flinch and the yips. The yips are a mental issue where you can’t (do the action). A flinch, to me, is (when) your subconscious knows the putter head is not in the right spot and you manipulate it.

“I’m a firm believer that the vast majority of the ‘yips’ occur when something is wrong with your setup, with your physical being, not your mental being. And then your subconscious takes over. Subconsciously, I know where the clubhead is and then I react to it subconsciously.”

The PGA Tour has a remarkable renaissance story this season in Lucas Glover. The 2009 U.S. Open champion was No. 15 in the world rankings at one point, then all but disappeared as he struggled with a self-proclaimed case of putting yips. He plummeted all the way to No. 634 in the Official World Ranking.

Earlier this year, Glover started practicing with a long putter and eventually embraced the broomstick-style version that Adam Scott uses. Just like that, the 43-year old Glover re-emerged, winning twice and collecting five top-10s. The narrative is not lost on Goydos, who at one point tried practicing with a long putter.

“I tried the anchoring,” the 5-foot-9 Goydos said. “I felt like I was going to pole vault. It just wasn’t comfortable. But Lucas uses a shorter one and … Yeah, I’m going to look into it. But that’s an off-season thing.”

In the meantime, Goydos will try to get in position to win again, and continue his battle with the flinches. And, oh yeah, to be clear, Ping is not paying him to keep its putter in the bag.

Not yet, anyway.