The timing couldn’t have been better. Not for PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem or any of the other golf heavyweights who assembled Sept. 21 to cut the corner on what many say is a non-issue in the game.
The first phase of Finchem et al’s anti-doping policy was unveiled around 10 a.m. (EST). Within minutes of that much-anticipated announcement it was announced that cyclist Floyd Landis would be stripped of his 2006 Tour de France title for testing positive for a performance-enhancing steroid.
While most agree there is no place in golf for doping, ignoring what could potentially be a blow to an otherwise spotless sport was bad policy.
The world’s major ruling bodies need a doping policy because, sadly, we live in an age that applauds winning, regardless of means. And because one genetically-altered apple could spoil the whole bunch.
It is a truth that Finchem has wrestled with for some time.
“But for the problems in other sports, I doubt we would be at this point,” Finchem said. “We are where we are given the way of the world.”
The key component of this first phase is the solidarity of the game’s ruling bodies. The Tour, along with the other members of the Federation of PGA Tours, PGA of America, Royal & Ancient Golf Club, U.S. Golf Association, LPGA and Augusta National have all signed on to the new policy. Which means punishment for a positive test would be universally enforced.
But maybe the most important element of this all-important first step is what went largely unanswered on Thursday.
“No sport has gotten into testing without litigation arising in some fashion or form, and that’s a whole other level of cost,” Finchem said. “But we’re not worrying about that right now.”
Finchem rues the potential legal fallout of this anti-doping move for good reason. As one player once mused about Tour HQ, “It’s like a country club for bad lawyers. Have they ever won a lawsuit?”
Legal action is as much a part of anti-doping movements as sample cups.
Every professional sports league that has ever headed down this chemically confusing road has done so in step with, or at times at odds with, a powerful players union.
While nobody in golf wants to use the “U” word, if ever there was a need for a powerful players’ voice it is now. It’s not that a players union should fight an anti-doping policy, but considering the fallout that would surely come from a positive test and the vagaries of a chemically-enhanced world, it is hard to argue against the need for player protections.
Consider the list of banned substances released Thursday by the World Golf Foundation, the consortium of golf’s ruling bodies that will guide the world-wide anti-doping program. Included on this general list are anabolic agents, hormones, beta blockers and diuretics and other masking agents.
Beta blockers diminishes the effects of adrenaline and are prescribed medications for people with high blood pressure and other heart conditions.
While the Tour is still developing a policy to weed out the “legal” uses of some banned substances, it is not farfetched to think that a player could inadvertently end up on the wrong end of a “false positive” sample.
Masking agents should also be of particular concern to players.
“Let’s say a guy gets a cold and takes some cough medicine,” said Randy Myers, the director of fitness at Sea Island (Ga.) Resort who works with many Tour players including Davis Love III, Jonathan Byrd and Lucas Glover. “He takes some cough medicine and the next day (he) gets to the course and is (tested).”
One of the active ingredients in some cough medicines is albuterol, which could show up on a performance-enhancing test as a masking agent. Elevated amounts of B-12, also used in certain cough medicines, could also show up as a masking agent.
“There’s easy ways for some of these things to get into your system. There’s a big risk,” Myers said. “We need to protect the players.”
Myers says he doesn’t know of any Tour players knowingly using performance-enhancing drugs. But then most of the major league baseball players who have tested positive for doping contend they had no idea what was in that milkshake their trainer gave them.
Some of these drugs are so synthetic and difficult to test for that the Tour decided not to include them on the list of prohibited substances.
Two agents from the World Anti-Doping Association list, which is used in the Olympics and other sports, were left off golf’s banned list because Finchem said it would cause an undue administrative burden and they would do little to help golfers.
This is Barry Bonds territory. Chemical cocktails so convoluted lab coats could replace suits and ties in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., before a plan is finalized. The periodic table of the elements could become a part of the Rules of Golf.
Doping is, at best, a gray world.
Even Landis, after months of hearings and public debates, continues to cling to his innocence. He estimates he spent nearly $2 million in Webcasts and other public relations moves to prove he didn’t violate any doping rules.
That’s about $500,000 more than Finchem estimates the Tour will spend next year to administer its anti-doping policy, which he says will include a vigorous education program for players, agents and trainers.
Maybe Finchem, who first started answering doping question at the start of the decade, has slow-played the development of an anti-doping program in an attempt to avoid the type of hasty policy making that could leave a “false positive” stain on his circuit.
Let’s hope Finchem continues to take the deliberate high road in his quest to protect the game as well as the players. Without a strong advocate for the players, it’s the only hope they may have.
Posted: 9/21/2007
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