The sun.
Our source of warmth. It makes snow melt, plants grow and people smile. For years, the sun was good. It was a happy face looking down on our good Earth.
We have learned painfully about another side of the sun. It also is the ball of fire in the sky. It parches grass, blisters house paint and dries wetlands. It burns and poisons our skin.
The sun can kill. Skin cancer is now the world’s most common form of that disease.
In a more innocent time, we worshiped the sun. We worked on our tans and wanted a healthy glow. The golf course was one place we went to get some sun after a winter indoors. Now we are paying for it.
Twenty years ago, little attention was paid to the damage the sun could do to golfers. Spending a day in the sun was just another positive about playing golf. Sunburn was just a painful inconvenience. A golfer’s tan became a badge of honor.
“When I was a kid, you weren’t even considered a real man unless you lost your nose three or four times a summer,” said PGA Tour star Tom Kite, who, when growing up in Austin, Texas, lived for the sun.
New research shows that at least 1 million new cases of skin cancer will develop in the U.S. this year, an increase of about 300,000. At least 32,000 of those new cases will be malignant melanoma, the most deadly form of cancer. Many of those new patients will be golfers.
The sun is part of a day at the office for professional golfers. In the years before sunscreen and skin-care consciousness, the rays did more than tan players like Kite, Andy North, Beth Daniel, Robin Walton, J.C. Snead, Bob Murphy, Butch Baird and many others. It fried their skin. That “healthy tan” led to cancerous growths that have had to be removed.
Recent medical findings have forced the PGA Tour and the LPGA to address the problem and educate players about the dangers of being out in the sun. Jamie MacDougall of Huntington Beach, Calif., the PGA Tour’s dermatologist, makes several visits a year to the regular and senior tours to check players.
“Everyone should use sunscreen and get checked out,” MacDougall said. “You don’t remember every minute you spent in the sun, but your skin does.”
Said Murphy: “I go to the doctor at least every six months, normally every four months. I constantly have spots, so it has to be addressed. It’s something that can’t be denied.”
Beverly Willey is hired by the LPGA to advise players on makeup, hair, clothes and skin care, and she refers players to dermatologists.
Players have become aware of what earning a living outside can do to their skin.
“I’m the nag on the LPGA Tour,” Willey said. “When I first came out here eight years ago, a lot of players didn’t use sunscreen. Now, almost everyone out here uses it.”
The information now given to pros is particularly helpful to younger players. They haven’t been exposed to the sun as long as the veterans and have always had the use of sunscreens to block out the dangerous ultraviolet rays.
For some veterans, sunscreen came along too late. The damage had been done in their youth, and the plastic surgeons now have new clients. North grew up in the 1960s in Wisconsin and was on the golf course nearly every daylight hour. The years of damage done to his nose didn’t appear until years later. In 1989, he had the left side of his nose rebuilt by plastic surgeons to repair the damage cancer had done.
“There wasn’t any discoloration or anything,” North said. “My wife just noticed that it looked a little thin, so I went and checked it out. That’s what’s so scary. I had been going to a dermatologist for 10 years and didn’t notice anything.
“When we were kids, we didn’t know about the sun. We didn’t think about it. I was outdoors all the time. I think skin-care education is a great step, but it’s too late for most people. Most of the damage is done before you get to this age.”
Said Kite: “I used to wear a visor, but I had a couple of spots that had to be taken care of on the top of my head. Greg Norman and Tom Watson wear hats because of me. When I had those two things taken off the top of my head, I went to them and said, `Guys, you have to do something.’ “
You don’t have to be a tour professional to get skin cancer. It can strike businessmen like Bob Alsteen, golf administrators like Western Open tournament director Greg McLaughlin or club professionals like Skokie Country Club’s Robert Powers.
Like North, Alsteen paid for the sunburns of his youth. An Evans Scholar who grew up to be a successful businessman and president of the Western Golf Association, Alsteen spent his summers as a caddie. As a fair-skinned youngster, he usually was as red as a beet at the end of the day. He paid for it with a full facial skin peel, which is even more painful than it sounds.
“Luckily, they caught it in time,” said Alsteen, who is now never without his sunblock. “I noticed it when I was shaving and cut myself and it started bleeding. My dermatologist sent me to a skin-cancer specialist. They did, basically, an acid burnoff of the first layer of skin.
“I looked like I had leprosy, for about a month. The pain was excruciating, but that’s the way to go.”
Even with horrific statistics and horror stories like North’s and Alsteen’s, many people ignore the sun’s potential to damage. Tanning salons are not going out of business, and you still can buy tanning oils that will fry your skin.
“A large portion of the population doesn’t know or care,” MacDougall said. “When I go down to the beach, I see my future patients. Some of it is from ignorance, but some of it is denial. Young people think they are invincible. The rate of skin cancer is still going up. We want to put ourselves out of business.”
