Rory Sabbatini won on the US PGA Tour again last week and the noticeable thing was that he was wearing a new cowboy-styled hat with a wide brim. The reason? He has recently been diagnosed with skin cancer and has realised that the caps that most golfers wear are so useless in protecting against the sun that you may as well wear nothing if your choice is only going to be a peak.

It must be something to do with the male ego, and the fact that cowboy hats really don’t look fantastic, that so many men in South Africa insist on wearing peaks, when we have such a harsh and strong sun, especially at altitude, that skin cancer, as any dermatologist or plastic surgeon can tell you, is increasing at a rapid rate. There is simply no reason not to put on a wide-brimmed hat and a strong suntan lotion before you venture into the sun.