Why Phil Mickelson has started wearing sunglasses

12th August 2020

It’s only in recent years that more and more of the world’s top PGA tournament players have started to wear sunglasses out on the course and it’s surprising that many more professionals still don’t wear them. When playing golf your eyesight is your most important tool; your eyes help you to track your ball, read the greens, hit the ball well and judge distances for your shots. Yet many golfers leave their eyes exposed to harmful UV rays for hours on end. With the average age of a golfer being 51 in the UK your eyes are much more susceptible to damage from UV rays: studies show that by the age of 50 we have been exposed to 90% of our lifetime UV damage. This can result in UV related conditions that ultimately lead to loss of vison.

Phil Mickelson will admit to adding many wrinkles to his on-course persona from a lifetime on golf courses and now he’s a late convert to sunglasses. In the recent PGA Tour restart, he was seen wearing sunglasses for the first time but why has Phil Mickelson been wearing sunglasses on the PGA Tour after spending his entire career not wearing them?

Mickelson explained “During the COVID break, I used this Carac cream, which is like a skin cancer chemotherapy treatment on your face, for like two weeks, and your skin blotches up and you kill these cancer cells that you can’t see and when I went outside, I had to wear some protection so I wore these sunglasses to protect the area around my eyes”

As it turned out, his choice of shades really appealed to the five-time major winner.

“I liked them,” he said. “They didn’t move around on my face when I was swinging. I went out and played with them, and I thought ‘Oh, I’ll give it a try.’ So that’s kinda where it started and then my eyes were much more relaxed at the end of the day, they weren’t squinting the whole time.”

Mickelson admitted the look isn’t for everyone, but the comfort of great golf sunglasses should be for everyone. The benefits are tremendous for your eyes, including protection from dangerous UV rays, improved vision, less eye strain and perhaps even better putt reading.

Picture and Phil Mickelson quote courtesy of the Golf News Network https://thegolfnewsnet.com/news/