Tour Drug Policy: Keeping Up with the Jones's: Editors' Blog: Golf Digest

Tour Drug Policy: Keeping Up with the Jones's

Friday, October 5, 2007 Comments

With Olympic track star Marion Jones' admissions this week, drugs are back in the news. Matt Rudy's well-researched piece in the October issue, which explains why the Tour's decision to start drug testing was the right one, brings this letter from Don Murray:

After reading your article in the October 2007 issue, some interesting scenarios came to mind regarding drug testing. We often make the mistake of assuming a certain drug that may be considered performance enhancing is also illegal (HGH for example). If Commissioner Finchem is hoping to fall back on the PGA Tour's player code of conduct agreement, which I assume covers all illegal activity, he is may look hypocritical should someone test positive for marijuana for instance. Would it be handled differently if they got arrested with Marijuana in their possession, but not detectable in their blood? Considering the fact that marijuana is available as a legal prescription drug in many states to control pain only confuses the issue. Are recreational drugs like marijuana to be considered performance enhancing or just illegal? The sad reality is what is taken from Mr. Finchem's comments isn't concern about player health or even unfair advantages being sought, but only about the precious Tour image. Tour players break the law regularly as do many citizens of this country whether it be in a tiny, illegal tax deduction or driving with 1/100th of a decimal point over the legal alcohol level in their system, it doesn't seem to be Mr. Finchem's concern until they actually get caught.

I'm curious, as you are, about the gray areas. Another one: A player is taking a drug for ADHD...it helps him focus...is that an issue? Right now, Finchem has answered with a very specific list of banned substances. (Anabolic agents, hormones, anti-estrogens, diuretics, stimulants, narcotics, cannabinoids and beta blockers.) You can bet there will be adjustiments. But I'm not sure it's just image that the Tour's worried about. It's also trust. I'm reminded of something Tommy John, the great Dodgers and Yankees lefthander, said about Deane Beman's stance on drug testing. "Beman used to tell me, 'We have drug testing on tour. It's called the four-footer." That wasn't good enough for Tommy. "Fans need to know that what they're seeing is legitimate."

From Rudy's piece:

Even if the true number is closer to zero than 50, it's clear that the idea of professional golf not needing to worry about steroids is as outdated as the notion that golfers aren't athletes. "The reality is that the public is slowly coming to the view that performance-enhancing substances are prolific in sports," says PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem, who is expected to announce a set of anti-doping rules for the tour later this year. "Whether we have an issue or not doesn't matter if people think we have one."

Today Ernie Els joined Tiger and others in strongly supporting Finchem's decision (and recounted a conversation he had with Gary Player about Player's remarks at Carnoustie. Jeff Brooke at globeandmail.com weighs in, too. An idea whose time has come.

--Bob Carney

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Att: Peter Morrice

After playing golf for over 50 years, when I saw ernie Els' tip "Free Up Your Driver" in the Nov. '07 issue, I finally realized why I and other "duffers" fail to maximize distance and maintain down the middle direction with their drivers. Els says,"feel like you're cracking a whip on the way down, not tensing up to hit something hard".

Cracking the whip is the secret I never heard before. It fully explains why I and the majority of golfers who took up the game either in their teeens or later in life have a tendency to "hit something hard" which we all learned growing up playing baseball or softball. However, the significant difference between baseball and golf is that the baseball bat has no flex, it's a hard object hitting a hard object. A golf club flexes, so that the power and energy from the downswing is stored innthe shaft and then transferred to the club head...in baseball the bat is heavy vs. a golf club and its hitting area is significnatly larger and less concentrated than in the golf club head. That'w why we swing harder and our goal is contact, not necessarily distance in baseball. In golf, off the tee, it's all distance..you get no points for "bloop singles" off the tee in golf!! In baseball, it's a very successfull result!

This could be visualized easily for the readers by showing a side-by-side visual of a batter hitting off a tee vs. a golfer teeing off. If you freeze frame the downswing about6-8" before contact in golf and the same distance as the batter is about to crush the ball off the batting tee, readers will see that the bat has no flex and the club is bent in to a curve.

In baseball we were taught as kids to make contact by swinging hips, arms, shoulders and wrists through the ball in a fluid motion. However, in golf, because of the cracking the whip phenomenon, the player is pretty much releasing the club earlier and allowing the flex with the stored energy to bring the power, not the golfer's own energy and swing effort . In golf when you crack the whip, you're actually "throwing " the small club head at the ball rather than hitting it with a hammer-type blow the result of which is determined by where contact is made on the bat...in the middle you get distance and direction, at the end of the bat, you lose distance and will probably not hit the ball down the middle of the field.

Quite a lesson from Mr. Els after all these years. It may have come up before, but I must have missed it(no teacher ever brought this up to me). But now I got it! Thanks Ernie...now I finally understand the source of power for getting maximum distance off the tee.

Jerry Borin
Morristown, NJ
10/6/07

Posted by JerryBorin October 6, 2007 1:46 PM