"You know what's really recklessly irresponsible? Dealing with a doctor who has a history of using and prescribing the banned HGH substance, that's what."
That's the LA Times' Bill Plaschke responding to yesterday's Mark Steinberg criticism of the New York Times. There's more:
All the healers in the world, the best money can buy, and Woods chooses an eccentric 50-year-old HGH peddler who not only prescribes it to older patients, but says he injects himself five days a week to keep up with a wife who, he says, is 22 years younger?
"If the body is healthy, then your mind and intellect are free to study, to feed your spirit," Galea told the New York Times in an interview.
Woods has been feeding his spirit quite enough, thank you.
In past cases, from Olympians to major leaguers, nearly anyone involved with a steroid salesman is eventually found to have been using steroids. Yet while the PGA Tour tests for performance-enhancing drugs, no sporting organization has found an acceptable noninvasive test for HGH.
So this story might go nowhere. But its legs have already taken it miles farther than anyone imagined, which marks the true and lasting danger of Woods' dalliances.
The public thinks, if there's even a chance he's guilty of running a harem while married with two young children, there's a chance he could be guilty of anything.
Mike Bianchi in the Orlando Sentinel is even more blunt:
Remember the before-and-after pictures of lanky Bonds as a young baseball player and then the bulked-up, hulked-up Bonds after he began using that BALCO-manufactured "flaxseed oil"? Well, look at pictures of Tiger as the skinny young golfer and compare them to the thicker, bigger, sculpted, chiseled Tiger of today.
Doesn't it make you wonder?
Why should we blindly assume the world's top golfer is immune to cheating when top athletes in nearly every other sport (baseball, football, track, swimming, cycling, etc., etc.) have been accused of using performance-enhancers. And, yes, some of these athletes (see Lance Armstrong, Alex Rodriguez, Marion Jones, etc.) were beloved role models just like Tiger.
And, please, you Pollyanna PGA purists, spare us the rhetoric about how your sport is so honorable that competitors would never, ever cheat the game. I've heard such nonsense for years from golfers, golf fans and Finchem, who last year had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the drug-testing era.
Wednesday, December 16, 2009 at 08:25 AM
Reader Comments (40)
He sure took some flak for talking about this sometime back.
I've often wondered about how Woods developed the way that he did, just as I've wondered about a few guys who are on the Tour. That said, I think folks are dreaming to think that Dr. Galea is going to be the key to linking Woods to performance enhancing drugs.
Nobody knows whether Tiger Woods has a drug problem, either prescription painkillers/hypnotics, or PEDs. But recent events make it clear there's reason for suspicion on both fronts. As for those who felt Tiger was too smart to risk "tainting" his legacy, I disagree. He's shown he has poor judgement in some areas of his life, and that he's willing to resort to drugs for other problems in his life. Legal drugs, yes, and yes, for real problems, as far as we know. But I could see him using HGH to assist in his ultra-high intensity workout regime.
There is one question that, in my mind, will determine if he used:
"Tiger, have you ever CONSIDERED using PEDs?" If he answers no, then he most certainly HAS used them.
his legacy is forever tarnished...
Eldrick Tiger Woods...the Roger Clemens of golf.
I accept that Woods is a serial love cheat, he's clearly lied shamelessly to cover his philanderings, but in the absence of any evidence linking him to PEDs I think he deserves the benefit of the doubt. He is getting it from me - but like Keynes I am happy to change my mind if the evidence emerges.
Dukerson - that's unfair nonsense, you sound like someone who'd ask the question "when did you stop beating your wife" in all seriousness.
Not another major won will equal what Jack Nicklaus acheived. His run at Jack is officially over.
Tiger sure isn't untouchable any more. Open speculation that he is in rehab, questioning him for his medical decisions. Who could have predicted this a month ago? He must be wondering how he could lose so much so quickly.
I agree that it is necessary to regulate drug usage among athletes, for the same reason you regulate equipment in sports. You have to draw lines somewhere. And in that sense, yes, it's cheating if a PGA Tour player is caught using HGH or any other banned substance.
So much like the people lining up to defend or "de-moralize" Tiger's cheating on his wife, I'd like to say that I wouldn't consider Tiger or any other athlete's use of something like HGH as morally wrong, in the sporting-sense, where "immoral" = "cheater."
However, if a physician prescribes or otherwise provides people with HGH or other substances such as steroids, I consider that to be unethical. Galea treats elderly people with HGH? Why? What clinical trials have been done, for what specific problems, and with what results? HGH makes cells grow and heal. So if you have a cancer somewhere, will HGH make it more aggressive and metastasize? Will HGH mess with the immune system in a way such as to encourage the growth of tumors, or somehow upset normal resistance to disease? A doctor who provides substances like this is not acting in the best interest of patients. Trotting the globe and doing PRP injections is in the same vein: makes people really happy, makes you look like a pioneer, and fills up your wallet.
I would give Tiger the benefit of the doubt that his association with this Dr. was made innocently, as would any athlete looking for a medical benefit or performance edge. But such a Dr. would certainly be the type to push something quasi-legal/ethical onto any athlete, including Tiger, so there's reason to be suspicious.
Finally, the fact that Tiger was "ripped" before meeting Galea does not say anything, at all about the possibility that he received PED's from him. You can get "ripped" with HGH or steroids, you can get ripped without them. Up to a point of course, a point beyond which Tiger (not looking like a grotesque Mr. Olympia ca. 1997), clearly hasn't passed. Also, not every PED necessarily builds "bulk." The type of muscles one develops on PED's is still dependent on the type of exercise one does, so Tiger could have been juicing for years without any discernable outward change in his physique. The benefits could have been dynamic--more speed, faster recovery from workouts, faster healing, etc.
Dr. Galea, alone, is not likely to lead to any PED-'indictment' of Tiger Woods.
But the newshounds have already been released. It is open season on Tiger's past. They will regard him as guilty until proven innocent. At this point, it would actually be an interesting story if someone could convincingly come forward and say, "Tiger's physique is totally legit. Here's how he did it..."
Heh...actually, one could complain, WR, sort of. One could connect the (alleged) low salaries and generally dingy working conditions of a Canadian physician working in their system as motivation to hit the road and come up with a snake oil treatment for cash paying, rich US athletes.
That horse has run far, far away - someone killed it and made dog food out of it.
Yum!
I'd be delighted to know that it all had nothing to with 'the clear,' or any other substance known only by its initials.
Of course, Tiger faces no particular legal jeopardy that we currenty know of if he says and does nothing else. I don't suspect that there's any reason to suspend him from Tour play, now or ever. But that's just based on the most technical aspect of the rules. Yeah; if he hopes or expects to have any kind of reputation in his sport, his life's work, yeah, he should give a full accounting. And it had better be good. What could possibly be the explanation for his failure to do so, at an appropriate time? (Maybe not now; maybe not until his marital life is sorted out. And again, I am perectly willing to separate this from the tabloid stories. But sometime, in the near future.)
I play golf with a few doctors, and I'm happy to report that they're doing OK.
Oops, shouldn't have said that out loud. Health care, guns... there are certain things a Canadian should never discuss in the company of Americans.
Still, if this smoke comes from an actual fire, it would be a far worse catastrophe for golf than anyone could ever imagine. The period 1996-2009 would be like the two seasons of "Dallas" that Bobby Ewing spent in the shower - it was nothing but a dream...
Commenter dbcooper started out this Comments thread with a reference to Gary Player. It's really scary to read those old quotes now. Player never named names. And indeed, Player never singled any one player out for unique blame or criticism. What Player said was that he guessed that there were 10 or more players on tour actively using junk of some kind (also unspecified by Player). Player said he might be way off, but certainly not on the low side. It might be many more. Still, he did point very hard at a player of great prominence, unnamed by Player. And for that, Player caught hell.
Peter Alliss addressing the blame Woods' handlers have received.
EP: You're right. I read between the lines. I'm glad I haven't experienced the dingy conditions that you experienced here. It must have been unpleasant.
Now can we please get back to talking about something more important? Hey, how about Tiger?
All those people talking Tiger who never gave a thought to golf before -- you think they won't be watching when he comes back?
The ratings will go through the roof.
(Figured I'd change the subject and try to get EP out of "Blame Canada" mode.)
80% of golf jokes are about husband's golf and spouse relationship.