- The sound of club on ball may hurt your hearing - everystockphoto
Doctors suspect that the piercing sound made when a 55-year old man played golf with a new titanium club caused severe hearing loss in at least one ear. Medical specialists say the man played golf with a King Cobra LD titanium club at least three times a week for eighteen months then got rid of it when the sound became unpleasant and painful. Ear, nose, and throat doctors at Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital found that the hearing loss was consistent with other patients who had been exposed to loud noises.
The details of the case are outlined in the British Medical Journal (December, 2008).
Clubs Sound Like Big Bang
The man told doctors at the hospital’s clinic where he was being examined that using the lightweight, ultra-thin club made a sound “like a gun going off”.
Medical experts spent time researching online reviews of the King Cobra club and found other golfers commenting about the noise. One player writing that the clubs sounds like “a sonic boom that resonates across the course”.
But the King Cobra LD may not be the only culprit. Doctors asked a professional golfer to hit shots with various thin-faced titanium clubs and discovered that all of them produced a louder sound than the more standard steel drivers. The other drivers tested came from the club manufacturers Ping, Nike, Callaway, and Mizuno. The loudest was the Ping G10 registering at 130 decibels.
Crystal Rolfe, an audiologist for the Royal National Institute for Deaf People, in a report at BBC.com says, "Exposure to loud impulse sounds over time can cause damage. It is a short, sharp burst of very loud peak sound with this type of golf club.”
Doctors Suggest Plugging Ears
Researchers suggest wearing earplugs for protection against the sound produced by the clubs. However, Rolfe says, "If someone was playing regularly with these types of club they might consider wearing them. But this is only one individual case so we need more research."
Golfers have long used the sound of a club striking a ball as feedback for the quality of the golf shot, so earplugs, although they may be essential for preventing ear damage, might muffle the echo of optimum performance.
Experts who have studied the swing of legendary golfer Ben Hogan would nearly always comment about his ball-striking – how accurate and pure it was – and describe the sound his club made when it hit the ball, how it was a symbol of a perfectly executed hit.
“The sound of a Hogan golf shot with an iron -- metal against balata and turf -- was somehow different from everyone else's. No word, onomatopoeic or otherwise, can describe it,” wrote Al Barkow in the July 27, 1997 New York Times article “Hogan: Constant Focus on Perfection.”
Few could imagine Hogan wearing earplugs.
But golf club technology has changed since Hogan’s glory days in the 1950s, and so have the sounds of the game. And although earplugs might seem extreme, golfers may be willing to wear them if these noisy titanium clubs can propel a ball farther than previously imagined.
David Berner - David W. Berner is a journalist, documentary producer, writer, and teacher. He writes frequently about literature, music, broadcasting, ...
