When a fifty-one-year-old man first walked into our office that August afternoon, covered from head to foot with a rash, we knew he needed to be hospitalized. But he refused. “It'll go away, Doc, next month.” So, as our nurse gave him an emergency injection of steroids, we sat down to listen to his intriguing story.

It had all begun five summers before as a hand eczema. He associated the problem with taking up a new sport: golf. He was an automotive repair specialist who had never been bothered by any of the sprays or paints with which he came in contact. Steroid creams had helped, but his hands never really cleared until golf season was over.

Each subsequent summer the eruption reappeared when he resumed golf. And each summer it had become worse, eventually involving his wrists, arms, legs, neck, and face. Last winter, for the first time, involution did not come and his hands never cleared. Again, this summer he was having to go to doctors for steroid injections. But, play golf he would.

We could certainly agree that he had golf course dermatitis. But why? We struggled to bring out more history. He observed that his right hand, used to pick up the golf ball, was always the worst. And then came his seminal observation that the worst flare ever came explosively the day after he walked by some men spraying the greens.

The race was on. What was in the spray?