Battling the yips is never easy ... just ask Geordie Cassoff

If there's one thing golfers have nightmares about before a big tournament, it's getting the yips in the middle of a round. Like the dreaded shankapotamous that's known to rear its ugly head at a moments notice, the yips can have the same detrimental effect on the most important part of your golf game. 

The saying "drive for show, putt for dough" is one that's known worldwide by golfers of all skill levels. We all know the importance of a putter that just feels right when we put it in our hands. So when a putter goes awry, the tendency is to throw in the trash and find a new one. That's the easy part of the game. 

The yips? Well, that's another story. It doesn't really matter if the putter cost you $10 or $5,000; you're not making that 3-footer when your mind can't get past the fact that the shorty in front of you looks like a 50 foot, double-breaker. 

Plenty of players have dealt with the yips and lived to tell about it; while others have given up the game all together after fighting what amounts to a massive roadblock in your golf game. 

Geordie Cassoff is one of those players currently fighting the yips. As he told the Charlotte Observer's Ron Green Jr.recently, he's of the mindset that he'll try anything that works to get rid of the yips. And that includes using a driver during a tournament round. 

Yes, a driver, as in the same club he uses to bomb 300-plus yard drives.

"I'd stand over a three-foot putt - and I still feel like this sometimes - and think I couldn't make it," Cassoff says.

He smiles when he talks about himself. It's not necessarily a happy smile.

Cassoff has tried a little of everything with putters, but nothing worked very well. He's not afraid to go his own way, obviously. He carries only six clubs because he usually walks when he plays and the bag gets too heavy with 14 clubs.

He plays with a driver, 3, 5, 7 and 9 irons, and a 56-degree wedge. It forces him to hit different shots, backing off some swings, powering others, working the ball in different directions with his limited club selection.

So the driver is just part of Cassoff's quirky personality. While I've carried only a couple of clubs before during a summer evening playing a quick 9, I usually like to have my whole bag with me during a round. So not only does he have to use his imagination when he doesn't have the "right" club in the bag; he also has to worry about visualizing that three-footer going in the hole. This guy's brain must be going a million-miles-a-minute.

But ultimately this story comes back to the fact that he uses a driver to putt. A driver!

As a high-school golfer in the Pittsburgh area, he started getting jittery over the short ones. He putted well enough with a 3-wood that he shot two of the lowest scores for his team one season, but the coach forced him to use a conventional putter.

Last summer, with the support of Furman golf course pro Kyle Stam, Cassoff went with what felt right on the greens - his driver.

"I'm still self-conscious about it," Cassoff says. "When I'm on the putting green, I'll usually hear a few one-liners about it."

And did I mention he'll be using his driver/putter to try and qualify for the U.S. Amateur Public Links? Good luck to the guy. I for one always feel bad for a guy dealing with the yips. He just needs to make sure he stays the hell away so I don't contract the disease.