Overall Golf Performance Evaluation: Nike Maxsight Grey-Green-Sport-Tinted Contact Lenses

BACKGROUND: Sports vision aids are becoming a more integral part of an athlete's
equipment. Tinted contact lenses are available to athletes for various sports. The purpose of this study was to compare golfers' performance while wearing the Nike MAXSIGHT grey-green contact lenses in the areas of contrast sensitivity, performance, glare, and visual acuity with that of the golfers preferred choice of eye wear while playing golf. METHODS: Participants played nine holes of golf wearing the Nike MAXSIGHT Contact Lenses and repeated the nine holes wearing their normal correction or visa-versa. Contrast sensitivity, glare, and visual acuity were assessed before each nine holes. A survey composed of sixteen subjective questions were completed after each nine holes played by the participants to rate their visual performance on a scale from zero to one hundred. RESULTS: Although the participant subjective responses tended to indicate that the Nike MAXSIGHT Grey-Green contact lenses had a negative effect on their performance while golfing, in some areas the contact lenses objectively out performed the participants' regular correction. Crisp vision, vision in the shade, finding golfballs, vision in buildings, and tracking the golf ball in flight were all found to be statistically significant better without Nike MAXSIGHT sport-tinted contact lenses.
CONCLUSION: Nike MAXSIGHT contact lenses do not significantly increase the objective performance of golfers. However, some patients found that the contact lenses did subjectively increase their visual performance, while others felt it has a negative affect on their visual performance.