Carl Pettersson is my new hero! He wears sunglasses when he plays golf!

As the team eye doctor for the National Hockey League’s Carolina Hurricanes, I am often asked the question, “Why don’t you force those guys to wear visors to save their eyes from getting hurt?”

That’s a great question because I’ve witnessed players getting their corneas scratched from the blade of a stick hitting them.  I’ve witnessed blood floating in the front of the blue part (iris) of a player’s eye because a puck flew up and hit him straight in the eye.  I’ve witnessed the bones of an eye socket break because the thumb of a glove punched into the eye so hard during a fight.

Hockey needs to make wearing visors mandatory while playing to save eyes.

Just recently in the news, we heard about “Tan Mom”, who was accused of taking her 6 year old to the tanning bed.  Why is everyone so upset? Because tanning hurts your skin. A person can develop damaged skin, wrinkling and even skin cancer.

The sun's affects to the eyes are just as bad, they can lead to blindness. 

Macular degeneration is the leading cause of blindness over the age of 65 in the United States.  The macula is the photoreceptive part of the eye that allows us to see 20/20.  When the sun gets in there too much for too long, this area breaks down, much like the problems we have with our skin.

Who is out in the sun a lot? Golfers

Most golfers don’t wear sunglasses because they don’t think about it, other players aren’t wearing them or there’s a perception that vision is decreased.

The wrong type of sunglass will interfere with a player’s ability to read the green just like the line of the edge of a visor can affect a hockey player.'s ablity to see the puck.

There are now great sunglasses with the technology that actually improve how we see and read the greens. But more importantly, they save eyes by stopping the sun’s devastating effects to the retina.

Golf needs to make wearing sunglasses mandatory while playing to save eyes.

Carl Pettersson is my new hero.  He can shoot an 8 under 62 in the first-round of the Wyndham Championship with his sunglasses on.  What a role model!

(click here to read the article on Carl Pettersson's round of golf mentioned in this article)

What is wrong with this picture?
a) Blake is cheating by using his left eye to see between his
    fingers.
b) Mary has to look at the chart because she doesn't know it by   
    memory. This gives Blake the opportunity to move his hand down if
    he wants to cheat and Mary won't catch him in the act.
c) Blake is pushing so hard on his left eye with his fingers that when
    Mary tests the vision in that eye, he may complains it's real blurry
    due to the compression.  Mary won't know exactly what to do so she
    may just let him pass the test anyway.
d) Blake could pass this test but is farsighted (he can't see well up
    close) which causes problems when reading in the classroom and 
    won't let him reach his genetic potential in sports.
e) The majority of parents consider this vision testing of their athletes
    equal to a complete eye exam at an eye doctor's office.
f) Blake could be part of the 40% of athletes who don't make it to the
   professional level and get weeded out because of problems with their
   eyes that they don't learn about until too late.
g) Blake could pass this test but still part of a statistic that states 1 out
    of 4 children have undetected visual problems.
h) This is a poorly scanned picture from the Sunday edition of the News
    and Observer.
i) All of the above

That's right!  You guessed it! "i" is the correct answer: all the above!

I was reading the "Work and Money" section of the Sunday N&O (8/5/12).  This picture of a child having his eyes checked during a sports physical was part of an article discussing how clinics are bulking up for onslaught of patients that may show up with the new health care act. 

This is also a great example on how vision is overlooked in sports. Blake is taking a sports physical to make sure he is physically fit to participate in athletics.  The doctors and nurses are just making sure his vision isn't worse than 20/30.

20/30 is great if Blake doesn't dream of becoming a professional athlete.  Or, if he doesn't want to participate in the Olympics. 

Better than 20/20 is the vision needed to make it to the elite athlete level. Minor vision problems stop athletes from making it to the top. And, acuity is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to having all the competitive visual skills that the best use.

See To Play: The Eyes of Elite Athletes gives athletes the tools they need to become their visual best and reach their genetic potential.  Take the next step to insure your athlete can be their best.

Mary Whipple has her eyes on the gold in this year’s Olympics in London. She and her team won gold in the 2008 Beijing Olympics and silver in the 2004 Athens Olympics.

Mary is the coxswain for the USA Women’s 8 rowing team.  She is the boat's captain/coach and considered the best coxswain in the world. She faces forward during the race while the eight rowing athletes face her, keeping their backs to the finish line.  Her role is to steer the boat and yell out instructions that will keep the team at peak performance.  Her teammates say she uses her “boat voice” and are left to trust her command.

Mary was kind enough to be interviewed for my book, See To Play.  I wanted to find out how she uses her eyes for the other eight athletes during competition.  I also wanted to find out how the rowers use their eyes since they are basically rowing blind.

The interview was incredible.  Mary is a fierce competitor and, as with all elite athletes, her preparation, perception and training is intense.  I learned more from her interview than I ever imagined.  She told me what she looks at during the race, what she watches and what the athletes do with their eyes.  What I found most interesting was her intense focus and use of her mind’s eye to help her team prepare and compete.

The race for the gold is tomorrow (Thursday, August 2) at 7:30 am eastern time.  I will be glued in to the television with the rest of the US and rooting our team to gold!

USA!

I’ve attached the video of the gold win in the Beijing Olympics in 2008.

Click here to read more about Mary.