Forget the shoes. It must be the eyes.
Golfers have a new adversary in the constant struggle to improve their game and master a course. His name is Dr. Mark Whitten and although you may not have heard of him, every golfer on the PGA and LPGA Tours has.
Whitten is one of the nation’s experts in laser surgery and his client list reads (clearly, of course), like a Who’s Who of golfers. Tiger Woods, Vijay Singh, Jesper Parnevik have all had their eyes zapped into better focus by Whitten, in his Bethesda, Md., office.
“I’d say every golfer on the tour has come up and asked me about it,” said Fred Funk. “It’s the only surgery out there where you get instant improvement and there’s no rehab.”
It’s easy to see why players seek out Funk. Resting on the fringe of the ninth hole at Westchester Country Club, where the Buick Classic begins today, was Funk’s hunter green and white golf bag. Emblazoned across the bag is Whitten Laser Eye. Who needs Titleist or Ping or Callaway?
Funk has posted three of his five career second place finishes since having the surgery two years ago. He heard about Whitten from Nick Faldo’s girlfriend and decided to look into it.
“I went in to see if I was candidate for the surgery,” said Funk. “I had it done three hours later.”
Woods had his surgery done last October and has won seven times, including the Memorial Tournament two weeks ago when he blew away the competition by firing a second-round 63.
Singh, the reigning Masters champion, had his surgery last week after the Kemper Open. He’s won this tournament twice, in 1993 and 1995, but now he’s looking at this course in a different light. Literally.
“I’m getting used to it,” said Singh. “I’ve worn glasses for six, eight years and I always wore dark glasses, so getting used to the light is going to be a little bit of a factor.”
Ernie Els, who also has won this tournament twice, in 1996 and 1997, almost had the surgery done last week. But he got the eye surgery version of the yips and will continue to wear contacts.
“I don’t know,” said Els. “I’ll speak to Vijay. I’ve seen Jesper. Tiger’s done it. I guess it’s a really good thing to do. I guess I’m just a little bit nervous at this time. I’ll go with the contacts for now and see how it goes.”
For professional golfers, the $5,500 procedure is completed in one day. The player meets with Dr. Whitten for a consultation in the morning, has the surgery in the afternoon and is back on tour in time for the next event.
Whitten, who was unavailable for comment yesterday, has performed the procedure on some 20 players on the PGA Tour and 41 on the LPGA Tour. In addition to sponsoring Funk, he sponsors LPGA players Pearl Sinn and Katie Peterson.
In addition to titanium club heads, graphite shafts, balls that travel farther and golfers who are spending more time in the weight room, laser surgery is the next competitive advantage. Some golfers have gone as far to say that the hole looks larger.
“I hope it looks bigger to me tomorrow [today],” said Singh. “I don’t know. I think you read the breaks a little bit more. You see things that you don’t really see on the greens.”
Like a golf bag sponsored by an eye doctor.
