EVANS, Ga. — Bailey Shoemaker calls it the yips. Back in January, Shoemaker couldn’t hit a 7-iron on the range without taking ages to pull the trigger. Her first event back after surgery was a dual match in the desert, and she froze over every shot. Head coach Justin Silverstein asked his support staff whether they should take her to the first big tournament of the spring.
The verdict: It’s getting better, she needs to go play.
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By the time Shoemaker got to the Augusta National Women’s Amateur, she’d notched five consecutive top-10 finishes. But the yips, well, they came back with a vengeance as the pressure grew. On the par-3 eighth tee at Champions Retreat on Wednesday, Golf Channel aired a tee shot that took seven half-swings and waggles that added up to well over a full minute over the ball.
Golf twitter exploded. Shoemaker’s slow play went viral, with @mensgrill69’s post getting more 2 million views. The fact the caption of the video highlighted the announcer’s “This is part of her routine” quote, certainly didn’t help the situation.
“Regardless of what my brain says, like, my body’s doing things that, of course, I don’t want to,” said Shoemaker. “Are you kidding me?”
As the headlines and social media posts piled on, a shocked Shoemaker called Silverstein and asked if he could make some calls to get things taken down.
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“She was pretty upset,” said Silverstein.
Twenty-four hours later, after Shoemaker wrapped up a second consecutive 73 to miss the cut, she sounded remarkably strong chatting with select media beneath the tall Georgia pines.
“It’s crazy what the internet can do,” said Shoemaker, “and, I mean, everyone has got something to say, and everyone thinks they know everything. … I was the fastest player in college golf back in the day before this injury.”
The pain started a year ago, and Golf Channel’s Brentley Romine chronicled Shoemaker’s diagnosis of cubital tunnel syndrome, which caused her to put the clubs away all summer and fall of last year. She had surgery in October.
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“Every time I got to the top my swing, I would get a super bad shooting pain, and it would go into my fingers, and my ring and pinky fingers would lose feeling,” Shoemaker told Romine.
While the pain has gone away, the memory of it hasn’t.
Bailey Shoemaker of United States plays her stroke from the No. 12 tee during the first round of the Augusta National Women’s Amateur at Champions Retreat Golf Club, Wednesday, April 01, 2026.
On Friday, after a night of surprisingly decent sleep, Shoemaker stepped onto the first tee Thursday morning and hit a shot in front of 50 people like nothing ever happened. At no point during the first two rounds of Champions Retreat was Shoemaker’s group ever on the clock. In fact, rules officials told her group on Thursday that the group in front was on the clock as they waited on every hole.
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“Today, I think the longest I took over ball was 11 seconds,” said Shoemaker, who has hidden her social media for the moment but has not deleted anything.
Erica Shepherd knows what it’s like to walk off the golf course and into a firestorm. She was 16 years old when she went viral at the 2017 U.S. Girls’ Junior after the semifinal match.
The controversy was over a short par putt that opponent Elizabeth Moon had raked back out of frustration on the 19th hole. Shepherd’s longtime coach and caddie for the week, Brent Nicoson, asked Shepherd if she had given the putt.
Shepherd immediately turned to Moon and said: “I didn’t say that was good.”
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The match ended with Moon incurring a one-stroke penalty under Rule 18-2. Shepherd tried to play on, telling Moon and officials that she would’ve given that putt, but it was too late.
Shepherd was glued to her phone that night reading all the comments. She was called a disgrace to the game, unsportsmanlike and undeserving.
“It still bothers me today,” said Shepherd, a rookie on the LPGA. “Random people will still say ‘Hey you know what happened at the Girls’ Junior, that was wrong.’ There were a few students at Duke who were constantly coming after me for it.”
Sheperd actually wrote a paper about going viral in college.
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“It can destroy you mentally and how you think about yourself,” said Shepherd, adding “the human brain isn’t wired to handle that really.”
Shepherd thought about not showing up for the final match of the Girls’ Junior, which she eventually won. People said she didn’t deserve it.
Shoemaker ultimately missed the cut by three at the ANWA, but perhaps hitting rock bottom at on national television will help unlock something for her going forward.
“You can’t run and hide in the sport,” said Silverstein. “You can’t pass the ball. You’ve got to face the music, and that’s what she’s done this week, and I think she’ll be better for it. People are upset, it’s fine. Whatever. We know the truth.”
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The golf world hasn’t heard the last of the junior who owns the women’s course record of 66 at Augusta National.
“I was raised by Bob Shoemaker,” she said, “and he taught me to be strong.”
This article originally appeared on Golfweek: Bailey Shoemaker reacts to going viral for slow play ‘yips’ at Augusta
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