If there is no contention, is synchronization required on reads

Consider the following code sniper:

package sync;

public class LockQuestion {
    private String mutable;

    public synchronized void setMutable(String mutable) {
        this.mutable = mutable;
    }

    public String getMutable() {
        return mutable;
    }   
}

At time 1, thread Thread1 will update the "mutable" variable. Synchronization is required in the setter in order to flush memory from local cache to main memory. At time Time2 (time2 > time1, no thread contention), thread Thread2 will read the mutable value.

The question is - do I need to synchronize before getting the method? It looks like this shouldn't cause any problems - the memory should be up to date and Thread1 should invalidate and update Thread2's local cache, but I'm not sure.