From the IrishTimes.com
Driving can damage hearing
IT’S official: golf is bad for your health. Every time a discerning golfer steps onto the tee to launch their titanium driver into action, they run the risk of doing permanent damage to their hearing.
What was that? True. A study carried out by MA Buchanan at Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital found the noise titanium drivers make at impact can damage your hearing. The paper (British Medical Journal – December 2008) profiled a 55-year-old man with reduced hearing in his right ear. He described a strike with his King Cobra LD titanium driver as “like a gun going off”.
Other golfers found the same problem. “It can be heard all over the course, it’s mad” and “this is not so much a ting as a sonic boom.”
After sampling six different drivers for the coefficient of restitution (cor) between club and ball at impact, the paper concluded the Ping G10 was loudest and that in general “thin-faced titanium drivers may produce sufficient sound to induce temporary, or even permanent, cochlear damage in susceptible individuals”.
Great, I can't see the ball half the time and some of my shots leave me speechless, so now I'm going deaf as well. Golf rules!
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