Steroids and golfers: Unlikely, but unclear, By: Garry Smitts
Players doubt it would help, but many on Tour wouldn't object to some form of testing
Vijay Singh was on the practice range of the Disney World Resorts Palm Course on a sweltering central Florida afternoon, sweating for hours to fine-tune the swing that got him into the World Golf Hall of Fame.
He was doing it the old-fashioned way: work, work, and when that was done, more work.
"It's the only way to play this game," said the Ponte Vedra Beach resident and three-time major championship winner. "If I didn't do this, I'd still be in Borneo [where he was once a club pro]."
But what if a PGA Tour player didn't want to do it the hard way? What if a player was tired of watching Tiger Woods, Singh and other bombers blow their tee shots by him?
What if he wanted to take the ultimate shortcut to build muscle mass, endurance and, in his mind, increase his length off the tee and his strength out of the rough to catch up with the game's elite players?
What if someone already has?
Rare is the week that goes by when there isn't a news item in sports involving steroids and performance-enhancing drugs. Baseball, football, Olympic sports and cycling have all been caught up in a web of failed drug tests, suspensions, grand-jury indictments and subsequent convictions, tell-all books, lawsuits and countersuits.
Rare is the sport that hasn't been tainted in some way by the steroids issue.
One of the rarities is golf.
But with players hitting tee shots more prodigious distances every year - and more money at stake than ever before with next year's FedEx Cup points race - critics, cynics and skeptics have postulated that there might be steroid use at the highest professional levels, or the temptation might be too much to resist in the future.
After all, the general reasoning seems to go, it's happening in most other sports, so golf should have a mandatory testing program. The LPGA already has plans to begin testing its players in 2008.
"Golf is not like other sports," said Annika Sorenstam, a member of the World Golf Hall of Fame and eight-time LPGA player of the year. "I think it's sad that we have to have testing. I don't really think we're going to see anything, so it might be a waste of time. But if it's peace of mind for some people, and if we need to prove to them that the LPGA is clean, then let's do it."
No Barry Bonds on PGA Tour
Aside from several brief controversies involving "beta-blockers," a medication that slows the heart rate which some golfers say can help a player stay calm, no professional golfers been accused of using performance-enhancing drugs that would increase strength and, in turn, increase driving distance.
The longest hitters on the PGA Tour are Bubba Watson, J.B. Holmes and John Daly. While Watson is listed at 6 feet 3 and has an athletic build, he would not be mistaken for an NFL tight end. Holmes is 5-11 and has a compact build with large upper leg muscles from which he derives most of his strength.
And Daly, who has won the PGA Tour's driving distance title 11 times, is among the most notorious bad-bodies on the PGA Tour and jokes that he trains on Diet Coke and chocolate.
"Look up and down the range," Singh said. "No one looks like they're on anything. No one comes back from the offseason looking like Barry Bonds."
Rank-and-file players from struggling young professionals to Hall of Fame members say there isn't a problem now, and don't anticipate one in the future. Many say until examples surface, a mandatory testing program would be a costly exercise in proving the obvious.
"Testing would be a complete waste of time," Jesper Parnevik said. "I think you're talking about drugs that would ruin someone's game, not help it."
And Davis Love III of St. Simons Island, Ga., one of the four player-directors on the PGA Tour Policy Board, said the Tour shouldn't test "just to keep people happy and say we're clean, when I don't see a need."
But not everybody feels that way. Last summer, the world's No. 1-ranked player said he took the issue seriously and wasn't opposed to it.
"Tomorrow would be fine with me," said Tiger Woods, in response to whether the Tour should test or not.
Another development occurred last month, when LPGA commissioner Carolyn Bivens announced that her Tour would begin mandatory testing of its players in 2008.
Bivens is aware that no golfer has been accused of using performance-enhancing drugs. She said there hasn't been a whisper about it on the LPGA.
She doesn't care.
"This is the world we live in," Bivens said. "We'd rather be proactive."
Some wish they would be more proactive at PGA Tour headquarters.
Is the Tour "naive?"
Tour commissioner Tim Finchem said criticism that he is not concerned about possible steroid use is misplaced. A lawyer by trade, Finchem said his natural inclination is to want evidence before he takes action.
However, Finchem concedes that the Tour is studying a drug testing program and has been discussing the issue in Policy Board and Players Advisory Council meetings "since before Congress took up the issue," last year with hearings on steroids in baseball.
On the same day the LPGA announced its testing program, the Tour announced it would decide on a list of substances to be banned and penalties under a potential testing program. Both would be presented to the policy board in March for further action.
The Tour also plans to begin an education program for its players on the dangers of performance-enhancing drugs.
Beyond that, the Tour currently has no plans for a mandatory testing program. Tour officials point out that Finchem can order any player to be tested for any substance at his discretion.
"There's public opinion that we should participate [in a testing program] because other sports do," Finchem said. "But we have a very strong culture and history of recognizing and playing by the rules. It's a different culture than exists in other sports, and we don't want to lose that culture. We may take steps, but not because everyone's doing it. There may be other reasons to do it, but that's not a good enough reason."
Finchem said the issue has already been studied by the Tour staff, in consultation with the two main governing bodies of golf, the United States Golf Association and the Royal and Ancient Golf Club.
"We've had consultants come in, we've done analysis, we've looked at the substances barred by other sports, which vary, and how they test," he said. "Certainly ... we will have a road map, a road map with scenarios and we might move one way or another."
Love has been a party to those discussions and will, with the rest of the board, sign off on any future testing program. He isn't happy that the Tour could be forced to test because of public opinion, rather than hard evidence that a player is using steroids.
"We've been told it will cost between $3 and $5 million a year to test, and that's for urine testing," Love said. "Blood testing will be higher. That's $5 million that could be going to charity. But you don't see a whole lot of huge guys on the PGA Tour. Do we have a problem now? I don't see it."
Players ambivalent
If Finchem decides to implement a mandatory drug-testing program, he apparently will not face opposition from the players.
During a recent PGA Tour event, nearly 50 players were asked if the Tour needs to test players for steroids. They were asked by the Times-Union to respond in favor, against and no opinion. The players with no opinion were asked if they believed there would be a testing program, regardless of their opinion.
The anecdotal results seem to indicate the players are generally on Finchem's side.
"I don't agree with Tim on everything, believe me," Mark O'Meara said. "I have no problem with testing, but I would claim we don't have a problem. Other leagues test, and they still have problems. Guys are still getting suspended. So testing doesn't mean there won't be a problem."
Twelve players said they were in favor of testing, mostly to appease the critics and validate the Tour's public image of being a clean, controversy-free sport.
"I think the Tour will do it, certainly as a deterrent in the future, and I don't think that's a bad thing," Price said. "I think every professional athlete should be tested in some form or fashion."
Only four players said they were against testing, and not for privacy reasons. They simply didn't believe there was enough evidence to test.
"We don't need it," said Olin Browne. "I've never heard of a drug that will give you any kind of benefit."
Scott Riehl, who heads the physical therapy team traveling in PGA Tour fitness trailers from week to week, said Tour players are hitting the ball farther because of one simple thing: More of them are working out, on a more frequent basis, in a sport in which players historically didn't much care about conditioning.
"Six years ago, when we started the fitness trailers on a regular basis, a minority of the players were working out," Riehl said. "Today, about 80 percent of them are working. That, combined with the equipment they're using, is creating the distance. I don't think there are performance-enhancing drugs being used on the PGA Tour. I think the players are stronger because most of them are working out in a sport where hardly any of them worked out in the past."
"We're as clean as it gets, and we always have been," said Rocco Mediate. "There's nothing [a drug] out there that helps you hit it 300 yards and straight. I don't think a lot of guys would care if we were tested."
Would steroids help?
Mediate raises an important issue: Is there a performance-enhancing drug that would benefit a golfer?
Steroids primarily help build strength by speeding up the process of muscle recovery. That enables athletes to work out longer, harder and with more intensity, and therefore build muscle mass, strength and endurance.
Athletes usually take anabolic steroids to help them run, cycle or swim faster; to lift weights and body-build; or to hit something hard - baseballs in the major leagues and in football, other athletes.
Walter Taylor, a sports medicine physician at the Mayo Clinic, said there is no evidence anabolic steroids would help a golfer's overall game, especially at the PGA Tour level.
"You would obviously see an improvement in physical strength, but from what I know about golf, that's not the most important thing," Taylor said. "The side effects also would seem to be detrimental to a golfer. One of them is severe mood swings, and to succeed in golf at that level, I would guess the players would want to be on an even keel."
Tour players say holding their emotions in check is an important component of any round, tournament and season. Holmes, for example, said he would be leery of anything that got him too high or too low.
"Controlling your emotions is a lot more important than distance," he said.
Riehl said Tour players are afraid of two things: taking substances they think might be detrimental to their game (Woods, who suffers from frequent colds and allergies, won't even take over-the-counter medication on days he plays) and losing flexibility in their swings.
"Golf is a technique sport and the strongest guy doesn't always win," he said. "And distance is not necessarily a derivative of strength. Distance is being able to manufacture a faster clubhead speed through the ball. The faster the club hits the ball, the further it will go. You get that by being flexible. And I can also tell you right now, these guys [Tour players] are afraid of taking anything when they're playing."
Frank Lickliter said steroids would probably hinder, not help, the most important part of a championship golfer's game: chipping and putting.
"It's mostly about controlling your driver, not hitting as hard as you can," he said. "And there isn't a drug out there that's going to help you chip it close, or roll it 30 feet into the hole."
Another substance that could help are beta-blockers. They are prescribed by doctors for people with high blood pressure and irregular heartbeats, and some golfers have charged that the drugs would be effective in artificially keeping players calm during tense moments.
Daly and Craig Parry are two players who claimed in the past that other players were using beta-blockers to gain a competitive advantage.
One of those players was Nick Price, who was on the medication in the 1980s under a doctor's care because of high blood pressure and a family history of heart disease.
Price agreed that the drugs kept him calm. But he also said they kept him too calm and kept him from stepping his emotions and adrenaline up when he needed to hit a big drive, for example.
Price said he got off the drugs in 1989, and said his game improved. He won 14 times in the next five years, including three majors and the 1993 Players Championship.
"If I could do it over again, I would have never taken those drugs," Price said.
Tour officials won't say if a player has ever been tested and then disciplined for beta-blockers. Price had a legal prescription and fell under the same category as Shaun Micheel, who currently is taking drugs under a doctor's care for low testosterone levels.
Personal experience
Gerry James, a Ponte Vedra Beach resident and two-time World Long Drive champion, knows exactly what steroids could do to a golfer. Before he took up the game, James was a competitive body builder in California, and until 1990, took anabolic steroids. James said he obtained the substances under a doctor's prescription for "injury recovery," but hasn't taken any in 16 years.
James, 46, is in the process of honing is game for a run at the Champions Tour in four years. He said anabolic steroids would hamper those efforts.
"Within six months, your mental processing would be limited," James said. "And it would make you very aggressive ... too aggressive. It would take away the mental aspects required to golf at that level."
However, other experts say golfers might gain benefits with low doses of steroids over a long period of time. Given the fact that careers last from the early 20s to 50 - and then the Champions Tour beckons - golfers theoretically could use small amounts of steroids to help recover quicker from the fatigue and strain of a Tour season in which three dozen tournaments and outings, plus extensive travel, are the norm.
"There are many substances that would help someone recover from a workout and the grind of a 35-tournament season," said Randy Meyer, director of fitness for Sea Island Resort. "Even baseball players aren't really taking steroids and growth hormones to hit home runs. They were taking them to play day in and day out. They were taking them for the recovery."
James would not reveal any names, but he said he knows of some PGA Tour players who use a low-dose testosterone cream to help recovery from muscle strain and fatigue. He said they are being used in amounts small enough that don't enhance a player's ability to hit the ball farther.
Whether the amount in those situations is within tolerance limits under a future Tour testing program is up to the Tour, he said.
Authority to test exists
Missing from almost every debate on the steroids testing issue in golf is the fact that Finchem has the authority to order a player tested for any substance, if he has been presented with evidence that the player has either been under the influence or benefit from recreational drugs, alcohol or performance-enhancing drugs.
Under the Tour bylaws, if a player refuses to be tested, he is suspended until he does. If he tests positive, Finchem has broad latitude for punishment, ranging from fines to suspensions.
The PGA Tour policy is that disciplinary action by the commissioner against a player is not released to the media.
Love is one of those who argues that the provision allowing Finchem to test players at his discretion constitutes a testing program.
"Just because we don't have a policy for testing the entire Tour doesn't mean we don't or can't test," Love said. "It doesn't mean we haven't tested or whether anyone has tested positive for anything. We don't announce fines or suspensions for anything. If we actually catch a few guys [for steroids] with the policy we have, then you can say we have a problem and maybe then we have to do something."
Scott Verplank, another respected voice among players, also thinks the current policy is enough.
"What we have now is probably OK," he said. "If we go with a testing policy, then we'll probably have to negotiate with lawyers about penalties, and that might be difficult. If you have a competent man as commissioner, you're probably OK with what you have."
However, others who are convinced that the Tour does not have a steroids problem think the Tour should follow public opinion and institute a mandatory testing program.
They say falling back on the Tour's treasured integrity as a reason to not test is exactly the reason it should.
"If you don't test, how do you know there's a problem?" said Jeff Sluman, a past member of the policy board. "I'd like to see evidence there is a problem, and if you look at physiques on the Tour, I don't think there is. But how will we know?"
