One afternoon in Mesa, Ariz., LPGA Tour player Wendy Ward stands in the center of a big corral surrounded by 10 huge horses dozing in the sun. A few wispy clouds litter the sky and the temperature hovers around 102, balmy for this part of the Southwest in mid-autumn. Ward, 35, wanders among the herd in khaki shorts, powder blue polo shirt and tennis shoes, carrying a halter and lead rope. The sight is like something out of an old Bill Murray comedy, as if Ward took a wrong turn and wound up at the corral instead of the driving range. Her task is to pick a horse she likes, catch it, put a halter on it and lead it out of the corral. But first, she has to hit it off with one of them.
The horses eyeball her and wander off, indifferent. "I'm not feeling the love here," Ward says drolly as she approaches one after another. "Can't get close to 'em. Can't even get a meet and greet going." Finally, she takes the plunge and slings the halter over the neck of Polly, a bay Clydesdale with a white blaze, the biggest horse in the herd.
A small-boned, blond woman with sharp blue eyes stands near the fence, watching. Dr. Debbie Crews is a research scientist in the School of Community Resources and Development at Arizona State University and a sports psychologist for ASU's top-ranked golf teams. Crews also studies how brain activity and stress affect athletic performance, particularly in golf. She has worked for five years helping players on the PGA and LPGA Tours, as well as amateurs, practice a form of biofeedback to help balance the left and right hemispheres of their brains during play—key in high performance. Crews is an expert on the "yips," a condition that renders players suddenly unable to chip or putt. The technical term for the small, uncontrollable spasm or jerk in the hands that characterizes the yips is focal dystonia.
Most recently, Crews has pioneered an equine therapy program geared toward helping golfers recognize and correct emotional, psychological and physiological weaknesses that can hamper their games. She scribbles notes as she watches Ward.
Crews' herd consists mostly of Clydesdales, the huge horses made famous by Budweiser, and a few Percherons and a Belgian, all of them draft breeds used primarily for logging and cart-pulling. "Animals are touted for their therapeutic effects, but horses are especially effective because they are able to interpret a person's emotions and mirror those emotions," Crews explains. "If the person is tense and upset, the horse will be. If the person is calm and confident, the horse will be too."
Ward, a former U.S. Amateur champion and four-time winner in her 12-year LPGA Tour career, sought out Crews in 2003. After helping the U.S. win the 2002 Solheim Cup, she had begun to struggle with her putting. "I'd lost a lot of confidence in my game and my ability to score," she says.
Crews suspected that Ward might be suffering from the yips, that dreaded affliction which few golfers have the chutzpah to acknowledge, because to do so is to risk being driven around the bend. Yips affect more than 25 percent of serious golfers (Tom Watson, Tommy Armour and Fred Couples were famous victims), and those who've been playing for more than 25 years are especially prone to the condition. Some scientists believe that the yips—which also affect musicians, dentists and stenographers—are the result of muscle and nervous system deterioration caused by prolonged abnormal movements.
The yips are crazy-making because they tend to occur most frequently during pressure situations (e.g., tournaments). And there is no consensus on how to cure them. You can work on a new grip—sufferers may be holding their putters too tightly—or try a longer putter. Some yippers practice meditation and relaxation techniques, because anxiety is guaranteed to make the yips worse.
That's where Crews believes horses can be helpful—and why she has suggested that Ward go through one of her equine sessions. As prey animals, horses are hardwired to read and process minute clues from the environment—their survival depends on it. They are also able to read human emotions better than any shrink or psychic. Horses can smell our anxiety, aggression, impatience, frustration, placidity, trust and joy. If the rider is nervous or apprehensive, the horse will be nervous and apprehensive. If the rider is confident and relaxed, the horse responds this way too. Everything goes down rein, or so the saying goes.
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