Eyes of the Tiger

Golf Digest, June, 2002 by Craig Bestrom, John Strege

Woods is one of many tour players who have had LASIK laser eye surgery. Has it helped their games, and can it help yours?

Patient: Tiger Woods
Occupation: Professional golfer
Diagnosis: Severe nearsightednes
  Vision is 20/15 with contacts.
Patient's complaint: Wants to play
  without contacts, which are cumbersome
  and bother him in windy and rainy conditions.
Objective: 20/15 vision without
  contacts. Ability to discard contacts.
Referred by: Friends, other tour golfers.
Procedure: Oct. 1, 1999

Note: Patient is more concerned about how
different weather conditions will affect
his eyesight will affect his eyesight
and his game post-LASIK
that he is about the procedure itself.

Golfers, it seems, will try anything to lower their scores. How else can you explain the recent inquiry by a struggling tour pro, one who does not even wear glasses or contact lenses, about Lasik laser eye surgery as a cure for putting woes?

"I won't embarrass the guy by saying who it was," says Dr. Mark Whitten, the Rockville, Md.-based ophthalmologist who has performed laser eye surgery on close to 60 players from the PGA, LPGA and senior tours, "but he came all the way out here just certain that there was something wrong with his vision. When I checked his eyes and realized his vision was fine, I had to tell him his problems weren't because of his eyes."

No, Lasik is not for everyone. And beneath the attention the procedure has received in the past few years lies the sometimes overlooked truth that Lasik is much more a cosmetic surgery than it is a miracle cure.

That's not to say you won't see better after Lasik. In fact, you'll probably eliminate the need for glasses or contact lenses. But there are no guarantees it will improve your golf game, and some optometrists caution it might make things worse. Just as in all surgical procedures, things can go wrong. And that includes risks of minor and major complications.

Lasik (the acronym for laser assisted in situ keratomileusis) became widely available to the public in the mid-'90s, and has rapidly grown into a $2-billion-a-year industry. It is the most popular elective surgery in the U.S., with more than 2.6 million Americans having undergone the procedure in the past six years. Lasik, which typically takes 10 to 15 minutes, involves a surgeon creating a corneal flap. The flap is then peeled back and a laser is used to reshape the cornea. Once the cornea is reshaped, light rays coming into the eye will properly focus on the retina for clear vision.

It's a process so routine that some patients are getting it done during a visit to the mall, sometimes paying substantially less than the $1,800 to $2,500 per eye that some of the larger, and perhaps more reputable, centers are charging.

"I don't think you want your eyes done on coupons," says Whitten, who performed Lasik on Tiger Woods in October 1999. "I also don't believe that excellent, well-trained doctors are going to put up with being paid $20 or $25 out of the $299 [per eye] some places are charging."

Trends develop quickly on tour, and when Woods validated the procedure, Lasik became the hot ticket.

Before laser eye surgery, Woods without contact lenses could barely see past his own shadow, and Bermuda grain was easier to read than the big "E" at the top of the eye chart. "He had what I call 'counting fingers vision,' " says Whitten. "He could only count my fingers a foot from his face."

Woods' post-Lasik vision is 20/15 without corrective lenses, and he says that the hole looks bigger and his ability to read greens has improved dramatically. Coincidence or not, Woods won the first five tour events he played after having the surgery. Then he won four consecutive majors beginning with the U.S. Open in 2000. Now 211/42 years removed from the surgery, Woods says he's still happy as ever with his vision.

"I was apprehensive, just like anyone else would be when their vision is going to be altered," says Woods, who received $2 million to endorse the TLC Laser Eye Centers, "but I was prepared, because I researched everything, and I had a lot of faith in Dr. Whitten."

Today the list of Lasik patients includes U.S. Open champion Retief Goosen, Scott Hoch, Jesper Parnevik, Vijay Singh, Hal Sutton, Lee Westwood and Mike Weir; LPGA stars Juli Inkster, Se Ri Pak and Laura Davies; and senior players Tom Kite and Hale Irwin.

Each of the tour pros we talked with expressed satisfaction with their post-Lasik vision, and it's important to note that all of them had it done for free. Even players who had complications during and after the surgery say they have no regrets.

Paul Stankowski, a two-time winner on tour, suffered what's called a "flap complication" during his Lasik surgery, when the corneal cap of his eyeball became completely detached. "No big deal," says Stankowski, "They put a contact on overnight, and that's it. Took it off and my eye was fine."

Stankowski had merely become a statistic, representing the 1-in-5,000 nationally who have a flap complication from this form of laser eye surgery. Today his vision is "perfect," and he no longer needs contact lenses.