Over the Green

I just finished surfing the web for the “Playing golf can ‘damage hearing’” story first broken by the BBC and picked up by a number of US media. Not to bore you with a retelling of the purported hearing loss suffered by a British golfer after using a Cobra driver three rounds a week for a 1½ year but my research didn’t produce any evidence in fact that is what happened.

First of all there’s no report the poor golfer’s hearing had been tested before his purported loss of hearing. Secondly none of the stories I saw except the original BBC item fully quoted the scientists who did the study creating all this “noise.” Just a lot of anecdotal he/she said or pithy golfer quotes such as “it’s loud.”

For your information from the orignal BBC story – the Norfolk University lead researcher Dr Malcom Buchanan, an ENT specialist and a keen golfer, said, “Our results show that thin-faced titanium drivers may produce sufficient sound to induce temporary or even permanent cochlear damage in susceptible individuals.” He said golfers should be careful when playing with these thin-faced clubs as they make a lot more noise, and suggested they could wear earplugs for protection.

Full disclosure: the emphasis in the above quotes is mine.

Looks like another bunch of fog rolling in…not the end of the world.