The Truth About Testing

As pro golf joins other major sports in testing competitors, recreational drugs, not steroids, raise red flags for insiders

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By Ron Sirak
Photos By Jim Herity January 11, 2008

Officially, the heads of professional golf don't believe they have a problem with performance-enhancing drugs, but they feel they must act to eliminate any suspicious spillover from the headlines in other sports. Unofficially, players and agents fret that the first failures will involve recreational substances such as marijuana. And collectively, all involved have taken a deep breath and await the public reaction to the inevitable -- the first positive test result

Random drug testing comes to the PGA Tour, not before July, and the LPGA, when its season starts in February, on the heels of the Mitchell Report, which listed nearly 90 Major League Baseball players alleged to have used performance-enhancing substances while the sport turned a blind eye to the problem. But one major advantage golf has over team sports is the lack of player associations. Both the men's and women's tours have been able to act relatively quickly without having testing weakened by becoming a bargaining chip with unions.

"We are the players' association," says PGA Tour executive vice president Ty Votaw. "We are both [MLB commissioner] Bud Selig and [Players' Association executive director] Donald Fehr." At risk is the reputation golf has long traded on as a sport steeped in honesty and populated by squeaky-clean players. "That depends on [the media]," LPGA counsel Jill Pilgrim says, when discussing the public-relations risks. "If we have a 1 percent failure rate, [is the media] going to report that 1 percent or on the 99 percent who are clean?"

A fair question but one that ignores the fact that anything that happens for the first time is news. The initial positive drug test will be significant no matter how isolated it is or how unknown the player may be -- although in the minds of many, only one test matters. "If Tiger's test comes back negative, what does it matter what the rest of them are on?" wondered George O'Grady, CEO of the European Tour at the Presidents Cup. While clearly joking, O'Grady also makes sense.

Woods has the record-setting potential of Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, the aura of Alex Rodriguez and the pristine image of Derek Jeter all rolled into one. He is also solidly in favor of drug testing. "I think we should be proactive instead of reactive," Woods said. "I just think we should be ahead of it and keep our sport as pure as can be. This is a great sport, and it's always been clean." After receiving the 40-page PGA Tour Anti-Doping Manual last month Woods said: "I think it will help. I certainly don't think it can hurt the game." Woods said the tour can test anywhere at anytime without notice. "And that's fine with me," he added.

The International Olympic Committee first introduced drug testing to sports in 1968 after suspicion East German athletes and others from the Soviet Bloc were using drugs. Testing took center stage in 1988 when Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson was stripped of his gold medal in the 100-meter dash at the Summer Olympics in Seoul. The IOC created the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) in 1999, in part because of concerns raised after a 1998 drug raid during the Tour de France bicycle race.

If golf is ever going to reclaim a spot in the Olympic games, its athletes will have to submit to WADA drug testing. The drug programs for the PGA Tour will be administered by The National Center for Drug Free Sport in Kansas City, Mo., which tests for the NCAA, while the LPGA will use a company called CDT.

Drug testing is not foolproof, however, as scientists stay ahead of the regulators by inventing designer drugs. The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) says it tested Olympic track star Marion Jones 24 times over seven years -- all of which came back negative -- before she admitted drug use during an Internal Revenue Service investigation related to the BALCO probe.

Professional golf long resisted drug testing because it believed in its squeaky-clean image and didn't want to be lumped in with other sports. But as drug scandals rocked cycling, track, swimming and baseball, golf felt pressured to act before it had to react. The LPGA moved first, unveiling a plan to its players last March. The PGA Tour announced its plan in November. Testing will be phased into the Nationwide Tour in late 2008 and the Champions Tour in mid-2009.

As the new season begins, players are approaching drug testing with caution and concern. Mark Calcavecchia has switched his prescription blood-pressure medicine because it contained a beta-blocker on the banned list. "I looked at what's legal and what isn't legal," Calcavecchia said at the season-opening Mercedes-Benz Championship. "[It's] just common sense. Certainly, nobody is going to accuse me of doping up. I'm the fattest, weakest player out here. I can bench press about 40 pounds."