The Power of Drugs

Greg Stoda in the Palm Beach Post:

Let's say there's a sport in which the proliferation of power reaches such an extreme that it becomes an overriding element of the game.

Let's say, too, the governing body of the sport has no rule banning the use of performance-enhancing drugs... no stipulation making illegal the use of any supplement assisting an athlete in gaining physical strength or reducing recovery time needed after competition or practice.

 Why, under such circumstance, couldn't the PGA Tour someday have the sort of problem Barry Bonds currently presents Major League Baseball?

Why couldn't professional golf have a Perry Ponds in a not-as-cartoonish version of the Bonds body-type?

The notion shouldn't be considered folly. Not anymore, it shouldn't.

Not with sluggers so dominant in professional golf these days.

Comments

[NRH]

Geoff, please tell me that you are not on this train. Is this Stoda guy a golf writer or your basic all around hack that is writing because the Tour is in town this week?

If it is the former, please give this man a Wonderlic test.
If it is the latter, he should ask the Pinnacle Distance Circus Team guys if they would rather have a Tour card and explain why they don't.

Sluggers? Does this mean Bubba Watson (5-11,190) and JB Holmes (6-3,180)? Those guys are just bursting at the seams with muscle. Villegas on the other hand...he's got the one sweatband thing working for him, so maybe Stoda is on to something. Perry Ponds? Very cute.

Somehow I don't think the Victor Conte and Greg Andersons of the world will ever be able to infiltrate the Spas at La Costa or Doral.

[Geoff]

NRH,
I am on this train to the extent that I believe it's something that may happen in the game (or may already be..).

[Fred F.]

It's not just steroids. There are beta-blockers, such as Inderal, used by many performers and public speakers that are a problem too. These drugs block performance anxiety and I believe are used by some Tour professionals.

[Sean Murphy]

The PGA TOUR is a professional sport, which has been granted special tax exemptions and special tax provisions by the federal government, and where we have professional athletes earning millions of dollars competing each year. In those "CONGRESSIONAL" hearings last year and the examination of professional sports, and steriods specifically, with the chances that there are some athletes trying to gain an advantage, why didn't CONGRESS include professional golf in that group of professional sports??? Especially when the PGA TOUR has been granted all of those special "TAX" breaks. Maybe it's just me, but wouldn't "Common Sense" say that because of those special tax breaks, Congress should be asking professional golfers to be tested as well. To ensure that golf is clean, and that it deserves the tax breaks the same as "Baseball" deserves its tax breaks.

Senator John McCain was visibly upset in those hearings this past year involving Major League Baseball. The main reason Congress got involved was because of "Baseballs" special tax provisions and its drug abuses being publicly revealed by Jose Canseco. Congress was contemplating the idea of pulling those tax exemptions from Baseball unless Baseball was committed to proving that the athletes were clean. I just found the whole exercise a "Grand Standing" oportunity by a bunch of politicians, when in fact they never "CONSIDERED" any other sports with "Special Tax Breaks" and never made any attempts in ensuring that these "Other Sports Athletes" were clean as well. If I were a politician, and was truly concerned about the welfare of the "Youth of America" I would have had my "Staff Director" researching every sport out there that has "Special Tax Breaks and Tax Provisions, and then researching what those specific "Sports Governing Bodies" or each specific "Sports Rules" and stated policies were for banning any sports enhancing substances. If Congress had asked for the PGA Tour's stated policies and what testing procedures were in place, Congress would have fallen out of their easy chairs.

What was extreamly ironic to me last year watching all of that was my own experiences of having played 17 years under the PGA Tour Corporate Umbrella. In those 17 years I was never asked to take a drug test. When I played golf at the University of New Mexico, and was on a full golf scholarship, I was put through a full physical and drug test every year.

I guess the PGA Tour's committment to ensuring that the Youth of America are discouraged from ever using drugs and in proving that professional golfers are competing drug free is the same as the governments; Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy.

[NRH]

As far as recreational drug use, I would guess that Tour percentages are probably on par with the rest of society in corresponding age/income brackets. Little bit of pot, probably plenty of coke back in the day and I can't imagine anything 'harder'. Of course this was only Sunday, Monday and Tuesday nights if they were playing that week!

As for steroids, it is not like they just arrived on the scene and some inspiring pro is now going to realize that they are the magic potion for this sport. It simply doesn't exist in the country club breeding grounds. There are plenty of reasons, chronicled every day on this site, that the distance issue has gotten out of control. If Senior Tour guys are hitting it 20 yards longer than they did in their prime because of technology, why would they need steroids? In baseball, the job is done when you hit the ball over the fence. In golf, you still have to get it in the hole. In regards to recovery benefits, this is golf and there are caddies.

Sean, who was that big dude who came out of nowhere in all black that lost in a playoff in a late season event in the midwest a few years back? Hat on backwards, whooping it up, etc. He may have been the only one that fits the stereotype of a juicer that I can remember on Tour.

[Sean Murphy]

NRH
He lost to Mark Hensby at the John Deere Classic, wearing short sleeves that really showed off his guns. Oh and the hat on backwards, he never was fined for that one as well. I can't remember his name of the top of my head. But you know if they never fined him for that hat on backwards they certainly wern't going to test him to find out if you guns were man made or supplied by vitimin "S".

[Glyn]

I never thought Baseball players used steroids until the last few years. To say it can't happen in golf would be naive. Professional golf is more than ever a bombers paradise and thus ripe for steroid abuse. Testing would be wise before they produce a Bonds.

[J.P.]

Well, out would come the "Independent Contractor" excuse from Commissioner Finchem. And I think Sean is right in pointing out that Congress should be asking for the PGA Tour's stated policies and drug testing practices to be produced. They may be independent contractors but they are making their living off of those tax exempions the federal government has granted them.

[Brett]

I have heard that steriods causes people to become very aggressive and hostile. Did anyone see what Tom Lehman did to his bag a couple weeks ago? I read somewhere that he has droped like 20 pounds and has been working out. I wonder if he is on the juice, and that's why he went beserk on that golf bag?

[Smolmania]

Wow, I certainly did not expect that innocuous post to generate this much activity. Isn't it amazing how the world of sports has changed? Tom Lehman whacks his golf bag with a club, loses weight (not even bulks up, loses weight), and he's on steroids? The before and after pictures of Barry Bonds don't bring Tom Lehman's change in appearance to mind. Now, if he'd been buff before and stopped using (as in Pudge Rodgriguez), maybe you could make that ridiculous allegation. . . the power of the internet to blog at will ought not be the power to make these types of assertions without some basis in fact.

My god I've been smacking golf bags, tossing clubs, and throwing golf balls into lakes after double bogeys for 40 years. . it wasn't drugs, it was this silly game. I know that I can hit it and putt it better, but some times it just doesn't happen. When you hit it as well as these guys on Tour do, I can't imagine how frustrating this game must be for them.

I'm sorry. Everybody has a right to his opinion, but Brett's allegation against Tom Lehman is not only absurd, but just bad form.

[Brett]

As rediculous as my allegation is, and we have seen other out breaks, or meltdowns, (see john daly at Pinehurst U.S. Open in 1999) the point I am making is that we fans really don't know if these golfers are clean or not. We simply don't know. That's all I was really saying.

[Smolmania]

Brett,

I guess that's my point. You said, after noting that Tom Lehman had droped [sic] 20 pounds and gone off on his golf bag "I wonder if he is on the juice." On what basis do you ask this question? Oh, well, anecdotal evidence indicates that steroid use causes what they call "roid rage." Of course, Tom Lehman hasn't gotten remarkably bigger over a short period of time (one of the indicators of steroid use).

Then, in your response, you compound the problem by throwing John Daly under the bus. Yeah, you're probably right, JD's on roids. That's why he melted down a Pinehurst. That's why he hits it so deep. He's a fine tuned, extraordinarily physically fit, ball striking machine. . . could anything be further from the truth?

Gee, Tiger hasn't gotten Elin pregnant yet. Steroid use causes a detrimental effect on fertility. I wonder if he's on steroids?

[Brett]

Smols
Sorry about "throwing" people under the bus. I certainly don't believe that Tom or John are on steroids. I could have said jim, tom, pete, or harry and the destinction wouldn't have congured up the idea that some of these players could be juicing. The facts are smols, we don't know do we? The other point I was making was, why don't we know?

[NRH]

Smols: I'm not sure that it is such a good idea to admit that you play courses with lakes on this site.

[Smolmania]

Isn't there a lake at Royal County Down? My recollection is that there is. . . but I'll let you know in August. Hard to imagine that regulars on this site could beef me for playing there.