The Sandbagger Sheriff is always watching ... even if you're a Super Bowl MVP.
You may be one of the many golfers who over the last few years have discovered a social media personality known as Yip Strickler. You just never, ever want to be discovered by Yip first. Hearing your name coming out of Yip’s mouth is tantamount to being indicted, with Yip being the judge and jury—and handicap police—when it comes to weighing in on net golf events around the country.
“If you win some type of a net championship, you might want to think about spending that pro shop credit immediately before they try to snatch it back after I expose your sandbagging ways to the entire universe,” Strickler warns in an Instagram post from August.
In an era of online influencers mostly trying to either entertain or make money, Strickler stands out. Sure, Yip is still doing both those things (His “MEMBA” hats, a play on member-guest events, are a popular item on his YipDrip.com website, and he’s available for personalized video messages on Cameo), but the man who bills himself as “the biggest independent golf journalist investigating handicaps and tournaments at prestigious private golfing clubs” is also providing an actual service. That service is needed more than most realize when they scroll through his prolific posts of investigative—yet amusing—videos that feature his signature “We’re going straight to the GHIN,” a reference to the USGA’s Golf Handicap Information Network.
@yip.strickler Yip investigates a NET 64 & NET 58 in Canada! 🇨🇦 #golf#yip#journalism#trending♬ original sound - Yip Strickler
“It’s amazing to me how many people play net golf for big money who don’t post any scores,” Strickler says. “My favorite is when I do a video and then all the messages come in afterwards, like, ‘Oh, that guy was kicked out of our club in 2000.’ There are notorious sandbagging rats out there. This is what they do.”
Yip exposes them to the rest of the golf world by scouring the Internet for net golf results and then using GHIN and Google to make sure nothing nefarious is going on. Strickler is more of a social justice warrior than a social media personality. Golfers frequently tell the 43-year-old that he’s providing a commendable service, and he’s happy to do the dirty work for head pros who don’t want to have uncomfortable conversations with club members.
“I just want you to post your scores the correct way. I don’t want people to get kicked out of tournaments or their clubs,” Strickler says. “Now, do I enjoy making fun of what they’re wearing occasionally and poking fun at them? Yes, I love that.”
@yip.strickler#greenscreen Yip investigates the 2024 Barstool Classic at Glen Oaks CC in Iowa. @Barstool Sports @Barstool Detroit @foreplay @Paige Spiranac @Barstool Iowa #golf#funny#meme#journalism#yip @Barstool Golf Time @Pars n Bars @Chips & Yips ♬ original sound - Yip Strickler
MORE: A PGA Tour ringer’s member-guest conquest
Golfers love it as well as evidenced by Yip’s growing popularity across his various social media platforms that are approaching 100,000 total followers. Strickler originally started his accounts as a goofy way to try to get invited to member-guests near his home in Dearborn, Mich. In addition to being a golf term, Y-I-P is an acronym for “Your Invitational Partner,” while Strickler is the last name of one of his “biggest idiot friends.” In May 2024, his alter ego got wind of someone with an inflated handicap, and he decided to launch his own investigation into the matter when he noticed the person had gone to his rival high school. “ I was like, ‘Oh, I’m gonna get this guy,’ ” Yip says with a laugh, “and then it got a little bit of traction.”
Things really took off a few months later when Strickler recorded a video about a suspicious two-man team at a qualifier for the Barstool Classic, an event that awards a $10,000 first-place prize to the winners of the year-end championship. After Barstool’s Sam “Riggs” Bozoian, the event’s commissioner, issued his own video response in which he ultimately decided to let the results stand, Strickler’s account took off. “ I’m very thankful to him because he’s a thousand percent the reason I started getting noticed,” Strickler says, even though he disagreed with Riggs’ ruling. “I went from 300 followers on Instagram to 7,500 the next day. After that happened, I was like, ‘Oh, man, maybe I should start trying a little bit with these.’ ”
Strickler has a real job running an automotive recycling business, a real family with a wife and three young kids, and a real name, though he says he prefers that stays private while in a “sandbagging witness protection program.” He also, of course, has a real handicap (7.0) that he admits is trending toward “vanity” territory since he is so busy with his job and family. Still, his side gig of exposing “sandbagging rats” helps him scratch his golf itch. He calls net golf “the backbone of the entire golf industry” and says he’s especially busy during the summer months—“I’m the opposite of a teacher”—even if he spends less time finding potential cases himself with so many people providing him “Yip tips.”
No one is safe. Strickler has even called out three-time Super Bowl MVP Patrick Mahomes multiple times for a five-year period in which he didn’t post any scores only to return with a couple of super low scores, taking him to nearscratch status before posting a big batch of high ones. The series prompted GHIN to put a soft cap on Mahomes’ handicap, a pre-programmed safeguard used on golfers whose handicaps go up too quickly. Mahomes has not responded, but Strickler has heard back from many of the golfers he’s called out—and even received some threats, including a cease-and-desist letter that he calmly brushed off knowing he had done nothing wrong. A long-ago four-month stint of law school—before Yip dropped out to play video games and poker—has come in handy.
Any winner of a net golf competition will inevitably have his or her handicap questioned, even by close buddies, but Strickler has revealed many cases of blatant manipulation, from golfers not posting low scores (although he did feel badly when one of his targets explained he had undergone a heart transplant, and Yip took that video down) to posting an abundance of high ones by taking advantage of the USGA’s recent decision to allow nine-hole scores to count on their own.
“The human element destroys the handicap system from working,” says Strickler, who jokes that installing computer chips into golfers would be the only way to ensure completely accurate tracking of their scores. “I believe if everyone was actually posting all their rounds the right way, it would work.”
Yip says things are particularly bad in North Carolina, which he calls the country’s No. 1 sandbagging state. He also has a top-five sandbagging ranking by occupation, topped by certified financial planners, followed by realtors, NFL quarterbacks, insurance agents and attorneys. So if you’re a CFP in N.C., be extra careful posting your scores because Yip probably has his eye on you already. Unfortunately, despite this scorecard sheriff’s best efforts, he hasn’t noticed a significant sandbagging decline—yet.
“I’m hopeful that there’s a Yip effect,” Strickler says before pausing. “Hey, I might have to put that on a T-shirt.”
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Category: General Sports
