Sussex golf pro who taught Justin Rose and Danny Willett supports Prostate Cancer UK awareness campaign

Steve Rolley, who through his role with England Golf helped Danny Willett and Justin Rose as youngsters, is backing Prostate Cancer UK’s bid to raise awareness of its online Risk Checker, enabling men to find out their risk of getting prostate cancer and learn what they can do about it.

It comes as it was revealed this year that prostate cancer is now England’s most common cancer. Despite this, there is still no national screening programme for the disease that affects 1 in 8 men. Prostate Cancer UK is raising funds to support vital research that will help more men get diagnosed early, when the disease is easier to treat.

Steve got his diagnosis thanks to a letter that arrived in the post, inviting him to take part in the BARCODE1 trial funded by the Institute Of Cancer Research and taking place at The Royal Marsden hospital in London. All he had to do was spit into a test tube and send the sample off for testing. This prompted him to be sent for more tests and a multi parametric scan. The results suggested immediate action was needed and after a biopsy, Steve was diagnosed with prostate cancer on September 24, 2001, three weeks after his 69th birthday.

Steve, who lives in East Preston and is the former head pro at Worthing Golf Club, said: “It wasn’t a fast-growing cancer but it did need treatment. And although I spoke to my friends about it, I’d made up my mind that if it was located in the prostate I would have it out. That’s the way my mind thinks.

“With things like ongoing hormone treatment possibly impacting my physical activity and as a sportsman, albeit an old sportsman who performs reasonably well and looks after himself I just thought get shot of it.”

Six weeks after diagnosis, Steve had his surgery on November 7. He added: “It was never ‘why me?’ It happens to people; it’s nothing you can control. So I just thought ‘how can we fix this?’. That’s how my mind dealt with it. ‘Let’s get it fixed as fast as I can’.

“My immediate thoughts were I was so lucky to be on the clinical trial. I trust medicine; I’m not scared of it. I knew the Marsden’s reputation. The team I dealt with all along the line at the Marsden were absolutely wonderful. So I had 100 per cent confidence I was making the right decision.

“The lead up to it, the nurses that rang on regular basis were fantastic. I was sent videos to explain, what it was, where it was, what I needed to do in terms of pelvic floor exercises to stop becoming incontinent in the recovery period. The whole thing was laid out absolutely brilliantly, and the follow through before and after surgery wonderful.”

Steve said he recovered quickly from the surgery, and now uses his platform to raise awareness of the signs of prostate cancer and to help raise money for life-saving research.

He added: “It has changed my life. Some men are frightened to death of going to the doctors and frightened to death of prostate cancer. But I certainly am not one of those. I want it fixing if its broken. If they can find a reliable test it has to be done. If I can do anything to make people aware of this testing programme in some way shape and form, some funding to make sure it carries on, whatever little I can do I will do to ensure that other people don’t have to be lucky like I was lucky.

“The PSA test isn’t reliable enough, and it wasn’t reliable for me as I got cancer and I had a very low PSA reading.

“There is a national programme for breast screening for women, but there’s nothing for men. They are trying to find a programme that can be rolled out and they believe the genetic profiling they have got now may be the thing that they can action, to give an indication you might have prostate cancer or are likely to get it because of your genetic profile.

“So this thing I’ve been part of, I’m hoping in five years’ time or however long it goes on for, people like me will make it into a positive, and it can be rolled it out to everybody. You hope it will be a routine test at a certain age when you get letter through the post, spit into tube, send it off and they will say you are fine.”

The earlier you find prostate cancer, the easier it is to treat. Find out your risk and what you can do about it with Prostate Cancer UK’s Risk Checker, already used by 3m+ men. For more information, see https://prostatecanceruk.org/risk-checker