Skin cancer doesn\u2019t discriminate when it comes to golfers.<\/p>\n
Five years ago, I had a small brown spot appear on my face that I didn\u2019t notice, but my daughter Lauren did. It looked like nothing, but I was due for my annual dermatology exam anyway, so I went to my local doctor, Jason McBean of Fairfield, Connecticut, who did a routine inspection of my whole body. He paused on my left cheek. \u201cNeed to do a biopsy of this,\u201d he said in his normal monotone. A few days later, I got a call with the bad news: it was melanoma, the most serious and aggressive form of skin cancer.\u202f\u00a0<\/p>\n
Golfers in their 60s who have spent years in the sun like I did should not be surprised by a diagnosis of basal or squamous cell carcinoma. It usually can be dealt with by an outpatient procedure removing the tumour in thin layers and immediately examining the results under a microscope. It\u2019s typically found on the exposed areas of the body like your head, ears, shoulders and legs. You endure a little pain but walk out of the office cured.\u00a0<\/p>\n
About 230,000 Americans are diagnosed annually with melanoma, split almost evenly between non-invasive and invasive (penetrating the deeper layers of the skin). In Australia, that number is more than 17,000. If it\u2019s superficial, you have 99 percent chance of survival; if it spreads to the lymph nodes, it\u2019s about 76 percent; if it spreads to distant organs, the number drops to about 35 percent, according to the American Melanoma Foundation. In a lifetime of being lucky, mine was caught early and turned out to be Stage 0 or in situ, meaning remaining in the top layer.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In the way only golf connects us with the medical profession, I occasionally play with Dr Phil Ozuah, who is known among friends as \u201cNitro\u201d for his explosive power off the tee. He is also the president and CEO of Montefiore Medicine, one of the great health institutions in the New York area. He arranged three quick surgeries in a little over a month \u2013 the first removing a portion of my cheek that was about the size of a 50-cent piece. Further testing resulted in a second procedure that removed about a dollar. For a short period of gauze wrapping, I resembled Humphrey Bogart in \u201cDark Passage\u201d. This was followed by plastic surgery to reconstruct my face, which sounds worse than it was, only my skin had to be dragged up from my neck, and I\u2019m now left with a handsome little scar. Six-month check-ups have followed, and so far there has been no recurrence.\u00a0<\/p>\n
My advice is to follow the ABCDE of skin cancer detection: The warning signs of melanoma are moles that are Asymmetric with uneven Borders, multiple Colours, larger than a pencil eraser in Diameter, and Evolving in size or shape.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Golfers are susceptible to skin cancer. Fred Couples, Greg Norman, Davis Love III, Tom Kite, Gary Player, Stewart Cink and Adam Scott have all reported scares. In the early 1990s, when Retief Goosen was still in his 20s, he found a lump near his collarbone that was diagnosed as melanoma spread to his lymph nodes. His physicians told him it could have been fatal without the successful surgery he had before winning two US Opens.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Justin Thomas, on his yearly check-up in 2019, discovered that the mole on the back of his left calf required a biopsy. He still remembers getting a call from his doctor at 9pm telling him it was melanoma, \u201can eye-opening thing to hear for a 26-year-old, a scary moment in my life,\u201d says Thomas, now 33 and healthy. \u201cI didn\u2019t think it happened to people my age. My doctor shaved off the mole, leaving a three or four-inch scar the shape of a football on my leg, and no further treatment was required. The more I read, the more I realised how extremely lucky I was.\u201d Thomas signed an endorsement deal with WearSPF and became a spokesman for awareness. He advocates using 50 SPF sunscreen lotion, paying close attention to any changing moles, and getting annual check-ups with a dermatologist.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Skin cancer doesn\u2019t care about your age or handicap. You need to take this lesson seriously.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Skin cancer doesn\u2019t discriminate when it comes to golfers. Five years ago, I had a small brown spot…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":56866,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[21283,1516,21284,7716],"class_list":["post-56865","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-justin-thomas","tag-healthy-golfer","tag-justin-thomas","tag-september-2026","tag-skin-cancer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56865","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56865"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56865\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}