Special Report: Golf’s silent killer

“Mine were non-melanoma, fortunately, but of course it’s a concern when the doctor first tells you that there’s something they need to cut out of you and send away to get checked,” Harrington told bunkered. “I tried my best not to worry about it until I got the results. There was nothing I could do at that point so what use was worrying?”

In the end, he got the all-clear but admits that the experiences have changed him. “I’m definitely a lot more diligent about protecting my skin these days,” he added. “In fact, if I was starting over, that would be the main thing I’d change.

“It’s not that I didn’t wear sun cream. It’s more that I didn’t always pay attention to just how often I needed to apply it. I’d be more careful about that if I got my chance again. That and wearing sunglasses.”

Harrington has even ‘spotted a few things’ on fellow players and caddies that he has brought to their attention and suggested they get checked. “That’s just the way I am,” he said. “If I’m in someone’s company and I see something, I’ll say, ‘You know what, you need to get that checked out.’ I’ll say it to spectators, too. If I’m signing autographs and I see somebody who’s cooking, I’ll say to them, ‘Hey, you’d better watch’.”

Harrington now wears sun cream pretty much every time he’s outside. He keeps spray-on cream by both the front and back doors of his house and also makes sure to carry either a spray-on on roll-on stick – if not both – in his bag so he has, in his words, ‘no excuses’ for getting burned.

“For a lot of people, it’s a time thing,” he said. “You know, ‘Do I have time to put on sun cream, go and wash my hands and then go and get ready?’ Most times, the answer’s ‘no’. We don’t spend enough time warming up, never mind anything else. But you’ve got to make time. Catch it early and skin cancer is very treatable. Leave it long enough and, well, it’s a cancer and it can spread into your body and kill you.”

He also says that attitudes towards skin protection are changing on tour.

“Guys used to joke about Tony Johnstone, saying that an acupuncturist wouldn’t be able to get a needle in his neck. His skin was that hard. Coming from Zimbabwe, he was well used to the sun. But the way people spoke about that back then, it was almost a badge of honour. It’s not like that anymore. People are a lot more aware of the risks.”

As its players have become more aware of the dangers posed by long, sustained exposure to the skin, the game’s main organisations have started to put practices and procedures in place to both raise awareness and better monitor the risks of skin cancer.