Message in a bottle for golf's dopers, By: Tom English
TIME was when the issue of performance-enhancing drugs in golf would have been laughed out of town. Steroids? You're in the wrong game, buddy. Try cycling or baseball or athletics. Check out those guys who pedal up mountains like they're freewheelin'. Have a look at the body shape of Barry Bonds.
Watch the world of sprinting. There's your cheats. Nothing to find in golf, only honourable gentlemen.
Thing are changing, though. The R&A will conduct its first testing at the world amateur team championships in October. It's a baby step but it's an important one, one the American authorities simply refuse to take.
The other day at Medinah, US Open champion Geoff Ogilvy said that, in his view, the threat of performance-enhancing drugs in golf was becoming real. Ogilvy said he could see the day when players are tempted to pop pills or stick needles in their arms to get an edge. "There's a lot of money out here..."
On the balance of probabilities, said the Australian, Human Growth Hormone (HGH) is being used on the senior tour. Ogilvy is in favour of testing.
But he's not the only one. Joey Sindelar is at other end of the PGA spectrum. He has little of Ogilvy's class but shares his commonsense on the drugs issue.
Sindelar talks about the recent emergence of what he calls the "baseball-player-type guys" in golf. What he means are guys with the kind of brute strength that makes you go 'woah!'. He's suspicious of what he sees. "Sooner or later somebody is going to cross that line," he says of the temptation to cheat. Sindelar also wants drug testing in his sport.
Two Americans, Jay Delsing and Joe Durant, say they heard of some fellow professionals taking beta blockers, products that can help ease anxiety and that are banned in other sports. "We market the guys who hit it 300 yards," said the American player, Joe Ogilvie. "If that's your message, and people see that beginning at the high school level, I think as a tour it is very naive to think that somebody down the line won't cheat. As it gets more popular and the zeroes continue to grow to the left of the decimal point, I don't think there is any doubt that there will be cheaters."
This is a view shared by Nick Price, one of the most respected voices in the game. "There are guys out there who are 16, 17 years old who hit the ball 280 yards, and they're not going to make it on the tour any more hitting it only that far," he said. "They certainly won't be stars. And if they meet up with the wrong trainer... you can stop a problem in the future if you test now. You can discourage those kids from using."
Price knows what he is talking about. Maybe performance-enhancing drugs are not in golf in any significant way but what makes golf immune in the future?
The Fred Funks and Tom Lehmans of this world say that it just couldn't happen. Why not? Because golf is not like that, they say. "We're self-policing," was Funk's mature contribution to the debate. "The culture of golf is such that you play by the rules," said Lehman, who at least had the self-awareness to admit that he might be a little naive. That, of course, is what they said in baseball and now the sport is a discredited shambles. They probably said it in cycling, once.
Those who say that golfers would not benefit from performance-enhancing drugs do so on the basis that the game is as much about subtlety as it is about power. Steroids can't do both, so why bother with them? Maybe. Maybe not.
Phil Mickelson certainly doesn't believe that power is the key.
"I do spend time in the gym working out, trying to stay somewhat loose and limber and have decent strength," he said. "But I don't go to the gym to pump iron, thinking it's going to help me shoot 64 tomorrow. That's not how it works."
But the people who produce these drugs are not exactly resting on their laurels at the moment. They are developing new items all the time. How far away, do you suppose, is a wonder drug specifically designed for golfers? If you think it can't be done, you are in denial.
Equally, it is easy to see how young golfers could get caught up in this world. Tiger Woods has set down a template for fitness. You go to the gym and you work. In the college circuit, especially in America, drugs are rife. You put an aspiring American footballer into a gym with a promising golfer and the chances are that the subject of drugs will come up sooner or later. Like Ogilvie says, the temptation is there.
Tim Finchem specialises in denial. He's the commissioner of the PGA tour in America and his attitude to testing in his sport is a bad joke. He says there is not a problem. He doesn't test anybody but still he says categorically that everybody is clean. How does he know if he doesn't test?
"In golf, a player is charged with following the rules," Finchem said recently. "He can't kick his ball in the rough, and he can't take steroids. We rely on the players to call rules on themselves, and if you look at our tour over the years, many players have, to their significant financial detriment. That is the culture of the sport."
Maybe Finchem is out of date. Maybe he needs to talk to some players about this. Maybe he should start with his old sparring partner, Greg Norman.
On Thursday, Norman described the PGA tour's stance on performance-enhancing drugs as a "bunch of bullshit". Norman said: "It's been rumoured for over 20 years, players using outside substances to help their performances. If you're playing for $5m a week, you've got to take advantage of it the best you can. It isn't just steroids. HGH, beta blockers, there's probably a multitude of drugs out there (in the marketplace) we don't even know about."
As the golf guru Bob Rotella says, golf is not a game of perfect. The sooner men like Finchem realise that, the better.
