PRO DIVISION: 07/30/2006 Hot Topic

[Qualitydaydream]

NOT IN MY SPORT: Steroids

THIS WEEKS PRO DIVISION HOT TOPIC!
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Posted by Gregory Jones

Steroids are running rampant in sports now a days, and all you hear and read is how some other members of various sports are juicing.

You'll never hear this in golf though, but you'd never know how great the athletes are in golf since the media consistently ignore professional golf as an example of a clean sport.

Golf is probably one of the greatest examples of what most sports were intended to be, the athletes are honest, the sports is steroids free (then again, they wouldn't help in our sport), the athletes actually care about the fans, donate insane amounts of money to charity, and they're actually people you would want your kids to look up to.

I mean really now, I know I would much rather my Godson Benjamin to emulate Tigers Woods than Ray Lewis or Jose Canseco.

But it seems that in the storm of media coverage of the various steroid scandals they have all forgotten about our beloved sport as an example of what athletes were meant to be.

There are no asterisks in the Golf Hall of Fame, there are only heroes and great athletes that performed at their highest levels naturally.

Golf is the only professional sports that has a well run, watched, and admirable womens league in the LPGA with athletes little girls can look up to, fathers can feel secure when their little girls look up to an LGPA star.

I use to have little faith in professional athletes, I believed they were self serving, whining, over paid kids who had no love for their sports, just the paycheck.

And then I found golf, and professional golfers and I realized that there are still admirable athletes that can live up to our expectations with grace and dignity.

So no, you won't find any of these scandals in our sport, and I just wish they would show the world more often that there are great examples of athletes what we can have faith in, can love, and can let our kids look up to without worrying that they're sending the wrong message.

Another one of the many reasons I love golf.

[DemolitionMan]

A little naivete can go a long way.

 

Reasons the media does not jump all over professional golfers include: it would not sell papers, the sport is so small relative to Football or Baseball that no one really cares, and the PGA Tour has very tight control over what members can talk about.

 

Give the PGA Tour credit for keeping the gossip to themselves, but the only thing I would want my kids to emulate is some of their swings. As far as emulating their morals or ethics....that's not a determination to be made based on media reporting or perception.

[upndowninthree]

I don't think that you can assume that golf is clean of all anabolic steroids due to the fact that I don't know if any testing has actually been done. Yes there are no monsters(physically) in golf but you must first have the genetics to become that way, without genetics you can workout and "juice" all you want but you are never going to look like Ronnie Coleman(Multiple Mr. Olympia titles). You can take steroids and not become any bigger, but become exponentially stronger, and being stronger is definatly an asset if you can already play. I can't believe for one second that there aren't golfers who are using some sort of performance enhancing substances, in this time and age I would hesitate to call any sport "clean"

[Qualitydaydream]

The Blog Goes Wild:

 

Steroids Or No There's Drugs In The Rough

 

 

Posted by Eric Schuster

 

Having read my fellow blogger Greg Jone's article concerning the cleanliness of golf regarding steroids I find myself having to disagree with his claims. First that steroids can not improve golf performance is not entirely accurate. I assume that Mr. Jones is refering steroid use as exhibited by Ivan "the Incredible Shrinking Man" Rodriguez, or Jason "I Suddenly Very Tiny" Giambi, or Bill " I Eat Supplements for a Living" Romanowski. This being the case his point is well taken, at the elite level no one in golf would benefit from this type of usage. He doesn't mention the Long Drive guys some of whom I've wondered about for years. As for general physical improvement, selective use of steroids would indeed assist anyone getting paid to hit a golf ball with a golf club and the improvement would not necessarily be noticable to the naked eye.

 

Some steroids improve one's ability to work out just a little longer than one would be able to leading to a higher level of physical fitness. They tend to promote healing of both muscle and tendon and can improve joint function in some cases. In a sport where one half a stroke a round over the course of a year can mean the difference between scuffling for your right to play and being a millionaire to assume that the entire sport is drug free is not only naive but foolhardy. Pick any ten people you know and odds are between one and three of them will have a drug problem of some kind. Golf is not somehow magically immune from the use of drugs in search for an edge of some kind or for something to take the edge off in general.

 

Beta-blockers have been used for years by folks as diverse as musicians or shooting sport competitors to alleviate the physical responses associated with performance anxiety. Just a slightly steadier hand, a little less sweat on the palms, and you don't miss that difficult note in the middle of a run, or gain one extra bullseye per station. To assume that no golfer in the professional ranks is not, nor has ever used a substance like this is defies reality.

 

Some anti-depressants have anxiolytic properties, meaning decreased levels of anxiety especially in stressful situations. You think someone on the Nationwide/PGA tour is not using Celexa or Zoloft just for this reason?

 

Alcohol can have the same kind of effect in small doses; and you think some guys can't catch fire in a bottle after a night of binging when everything seems to go into the hole? I know alcohol can impair performance in the majority of cases, but hey you only need 3 top 10's to make a million bucks and after that bender in Memphis I shot lights out. Any one who's ever traveled for a living understands the lure of a touch of the grape.

 

Nicotine effects the same receptors as heroin; watch the body language of someone who really really needs a cigarette and you'll see what I mean. Make a cigarette smoker play without lighting up and you have a basket case on your hands. Gives them an automatic case of the yips, especially as the value of the bet increases.

 

The world of Professional Golf is a most insular society, one that has the ability and finances to keep a lot of issues hidden in dark closets away from the light of public scrutiny. It is a society composed of human beings some of whom are, as humans everywhere, afflicted by unsightly maladies and objectionable behaviors. They just happen to better at hiding it than others.

[upndowninthree]

If you are saying that golf is not immune to the problem, but have more discretion in the way it handles the situation I would agree, but there is nothing admirable about that either.

[gjones77]

Make you a deal, you tell me a substanced banned in other sports that can help your golf game.

 

Various forms of steroids are almost useless, and the point of steroids that increase your recovery time and stamina have also been brought up, as well various anxietry drugs (which aren't illegal or banned with a prescription)

 

Any drug that relaxes you or calms you down isn't going to help pro golfers, it may help us amatures, but not them as much. They aren't going to allow them to hit the ball straigher, longer, and they aren't going to give them a favorable bounce.

 

As for steriods, the ones that increase muscle mass would hinder a golf swing, the steroids that can speed up your recovery time from injuries wouldn't help either since they can cause more issues down the road.

 

Golf isn't like other major sports where you have a 10 - 20 year window to play, pro golfers play well into their 60'd and beyond so the main reason for taking them isn't there like other sports.

 

None the less, I'm sure if there were steroids issues in golf they would of came out by now due to the fact that golf media is always all over these guys and looking for some new reason to tear them down.

[shoe295]

Make you a deal, you tell me a substanced banned in other sports that can help your golf game.

 

 

 

 

Beta Blockers...banned by the Olympics....and most assuredly used by someone with putting woes in professional golf competitions.

[CowtownTexas]

 

None the less, I'm sure if there were steroids issues in golf they would of came out by now due to the fact that golf media is always all over these guys and looking for some new reason to tear them down.

 

 

When has the media ever torn down a PGA player? I don't mean making a single negative comment, but more like the type of issues that athletes from other sports have faced: Michael Jordan comes to mind.

 

Think any of the PGA guys have ever had an affair? Has the media ever done some solid investigative reporting along these lines? We know about the gambling exploits (among other things) of one player, but he brought it up himself. What about other players? Think Daly is the only one?

 

The PGA does a very good job of protecting it's members. At the same time, the sponsors of the PGA do an incredible job as well. Does Sports Illustrated want to lose the advertising dollars from these sponsors just to sell a few extra magazines (if it would even equate to extra) for exposing a PGA player? Would this even be news in the broad scheme of things?

 

Back to the topic at hand, while I don't think players use steriods or other illegal, performance enhancing drugs, the PGA is smart enough not to allow itself to be willingly painted with the brush of having a bunch of angels out on tour. If the PGA all of a sudden decided to start a campaign showing how all the guys on tour are really "good, upstanding men", then I could see the media trying to get rid of that image.

 

That all said, most of the guys on tour are just average guys who happen to be great golfers. That said, being an average guy with average friends, even average guys can have a skeleton in the closet.

[DemolitionMan]

Steroids are so much more sophisticated now. The idea that a golfer would not be in steroids due to long term effects is the old way of thinking. It's not like these guys would be taking the stuff they gave to horses 50 years ago.

 

And add HGH to the list as well as who knows what. What we know on performance enhancement barely scratches the surface of the whole story.

 

People might as well get used to the fact that professional sports is all about money and where there is money there is the desire to get an edge. It's been that way forever anyway, but with technology only getting deeper and more sophisticated at an exponential rate, we are barely on the cusp of seeing all sports achievements spiral out of control where perception and reality are concerned.

 

I am not sure what sport will be first, but one of these days, there will have to be a sports league that certifies their athletes as "natural". Of course, no one will watch it as it will be the inferior brand. Inevitably, there will be a scrimmage of natural athletes vs. the best science and medicine have to offer. The naturals will get crushed.

 

Back to my original point about being naieve - ignorance is bliss.

[DemolitionMan]

 

None the less, I'm sure if there were steroids issues in golf they would of came out by now due to the fact that golf media is always all over these guys and looking for some new reason to tear them down.

 

 

...

 

That all said, most of the guys on tour are just average guys who happen to be great golfers. That said, being an average guy with average friends, even average guys can have a skeleton in the closet.

 

Or an illegitamate child in another state who grows up right handed but plays golf as a lefty. :man_in_love:

[upndowninthree]

Tiger hasn't improved due to increased muscle mass? being stronger doesn't make you longer? doesn't help you hit it out of the rough easier? As I stated above not everyone is going to gain mass by just taking steroids, most people are not going to eat five or six times a day and workout on a double split routine, which is the minumum necessary effort you need to put forth to actually gain "mass". And ask Jason Zuback or Victor Johannsson if muscle hinders their swings or not. I preceded all of those comments by stating that if they could already play, not turning an adonis into a golfer. And actually naming anything that would help is fairly irresponsible in such a public venue.

[NPVWhiz]

The old myth that working out can ruin your golf game is long gone. VJ, Tiger and 50 other tour players have essentially put that one to rest. Johnny Miller's old story about "ruining" his game by chopping wood over the winter was just a fairy tale. All those players from the 50s that didn't want to do anything to hurt their game (like spending 4 hours in the bar at Westchester was harmless!) were just deluding themselves, and today the game would pass them by. There are a few standouts that would appear to prove that working out and being fit are not required for success on Tour (Lumpy, Stads, Stads Jr., Sindelar, Calc). But I wouldn't necessarily confuse "hefty" with out of shape.

 

Who was it in a recent interview that said John Daly was "fit"? (I think it was Fuzzy, that paragon of physical fitness himself :man_in_love: ).

 

In any case, there is no doubt that certain performance enhancing drugs exist that can benefit professional golfers, just like any other athletic sport. Modern athletes are recognizing that the benefit of recovery time and reduction of risk of injury are undeniable benefits that can be obtained with doses that are well below some of the more extreme examples of other sports where sheer muscle mass is big component of success.

 

But it is true that there are elements of golf that aren't about physical strength. I don't suppose that the sport of curling has a big steriod problem, given the finess involved, and there are aspects of golf that are comparable.

 

I do think it's a bit of a stretch to say that golf has no issues in this respect, especially when there is no testing program to provide data to support the thesis.

[CowtownTexas]

 

None the less, I'm sure if there were steroids issues in golf they would of came out by now due to the fact that golf media is always all over these guys and looking for some new reason to tear them down.

 

 

...

 

That all said, most of the guys on tour are just average guys who happen to be great golfers. That said, being an average guy with average friends, even average guys can have a skeleton in the closet.

 

Or an illegitamate child in another state who grows up right handed but plays golf as a lefty. :man_in_love:

 

Now, where did you hear that?;)

[gjones77]

Hey guys, what ever happened to innocent until proven guilty?

 

None the less, you don't need steroids to launch a ball 300+ yards.

 

So unless Bombay Sapphire has something in it I don't know about, I can comfortably hit it over 300 yards and I'm not on the juice.

 

The media has created such a atmosphere where all athletes are now guilty?

 

There have been articles about the possibility of steroid use in the PGA, and everyone said the same thing (players of course), there's no use for it, it isn't going to give enough of a gain to make you earn more.

 

None the less, if you want to believe that the guys on tour are juiced up, go for it, even the mention of various anxiety drugs makes me chuckle, like Prozac can help you read a line...

[DemolitionMan]

No one is getting accused...yet. So it's not a case of innocent until proven guilty. But without a drug policy the PGA Tour is just asking for problems later. A sport couldn't possibly be more naieve and really more stupid.

 

Here's Finchem's thoughts:

 

"Since steroids are illegal without a prescription, Finchem doubts few players would take the risks inherent in using them.

 

But, he added, ''I have authority from my board to require a test of any player who I have reason to believe, or our team has reason to believe, is using illegal steroids.''

 

Finchem apparently bases that power on a broadly worded introduction to the players' handbook that governs conduct. It mentions situations from passing bad checks to maintaining a neat appearance — but nothing about drugs.

 

''In golf, a player is charged with following the rules,'' Finchem insisted. ''He can't kick his ball in the rough, and he can't take steroids. We rely on the players to call rules on themselves and, if you look at our tour over the years, many players have, to their significant financial detriment.

 

''That,'' he added, ''is the culture of the sport.'' "

 

 

 

I can see it now Tour Player A cracks one 20 yards past Player B and then can't take it anymore and out of the blue says "I'm sorry, I'm juiced, it's wrong for me to hit the ball so far. I'm DQ'g myself"

 

Whatever....as long as the Tour lives in the stone age thinking along the lines that no one would take performance enhancing drugs because golf is about flexibility not about bulking up is just asking for a bigger scandal down the road.

 

A long time ago the ethical question was asked if steroids is cheating, why isn't LASIK cheating? Tiger got his vision "enhanced" to 20/15, Scott Hoch went through it four times until his vision was enhanced to 20/10 in one eye, 20/15 in the other.

 

This is the kind of technology that just scratches the surface of what a world class money making athlete has available to them both legal and illegal.

 

Where do you draw the line? As for the PGA Tour, forget about drawing a line, they cannot even admit a policy is needed.

[gjones77]

If there were rampant rumors, then yes they would need a policy stat!

 

But there isn't, plus you're all forgetting one of the best deterrents in golf, the cost of getting caught is beyond any other major sport.

 

Golfers don't get weekly pay checks, they get most of their money through endorsements and tour winnings.

 

Now if there was even a rumor that a player is juicing how many companies would drop them from endorsements quickly?

 

Then they wouldn't be able to play on the tour, no endorsement money, and what country club would hire them to be a club pro, none.

 

The benefit/cost ratio in pro golf isn't worth the risk in professional golf.

 

And as for Tiger, his workout regime is legendary, he trained with the Navy SEALS for a week and kept up with them, Stevie tried to work out with him one day, and could barely walk the next day.

 

You don't need juice to hit it over 300 yards and keep up with those guys, most guys on tour don't even hit it that far and still win.

 

So you could name 1000's of prescription drugs that you can think would give a golfer a mental edge, if that's the case just ban green tea since it's an antioxidant and relaxes you.

 

There is a line some where, and it does get insane when people start looking for things that might give an edge.

[upndowninthree]

I don't recall anyone stating or even mentioning Tiger juicing, I wrote that Tiger has gotten bigger and stronger and that has made him an even better player, that's all, that was in response to a statement that steroids could not help improve your game. Again, steroids are much more prevelant in the middle of the road players, players that have plenty of skill but need to improve their carry numbers with the driver from 255 to 275, a significant improvement. All I am trying to say is that the perception that people who use juice are all bulked up and look like a pro bodybuilder, 95% don't, and noone is basing these suspicions on the average drive stat.