Pernice: Drug Testing "for the future of the sport"

Paul Newberry follows up on the drug testing story with some interesting comments from Tom Pernice, followed by Tim Finchem doing his best impersonation of Bud Selig circa 1998.

But mindful of the scandals that have bedeviled baseball, cycling and track, Tom Pernice Jr. said he believes golf needs to send a clear signal that performance enhancers won't be tolerated. He said a detailed testing program, complete with a list of banned substances, is the only way to deliver that message.

"I think so, for the future of the sport more so than what's going on today," Pernice said. "We need to do it for the college and high-school kids."

He worries that many up-and-coming players will turn to drugs as a way to compete in a sport increasingly ruled by bigger, longer-hitting players, who often spend as much time in the weight room as on the driving range.

"The young people out there can see how important power has become," Pernice said. "The top five or 10 players are all long hitters who don't necessarily hit it very straight. Of course, they do other things very well, but the kids see the power."

Pernice conceded there are whispers in the locker room every time a player bulks up during the offseason.

"When people get bigger in a short period of time, it makes you wonder," Pernice said.

And this from Lance Armstrong's good buddy:

Dick Pound, leader of the World Anti-Doping Agency, said he has heard it all before.

"It sounds like baseball, doesn't it?" he said when reached on his cell phone Wednesday. "If you look around golf, the shapes are changing from what they used to be. I'm not sure all this stuff is due to technology. Guys are working in gyms, and someone comes along and says, 'You should try this. It will build you up and make you get better faster.'"

Dawson said the R&A - which governs golf everywhere in the world except the United States - supports drug testing to put the sport in line with WADA's code and to keep performance-enhancing substances from creeping into the game.

Pound said he has discussed the issue with PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem, who was reticent about a drug-testing program.

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

Oh lordy. And I thought I was naive. 

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."

Monty's Press Conference

From Monty's Q&A:

Q. A couple of the guys earlier today talked about the need for creativity and shot making here. I was just curious, the idea of that kind of being a lost art these days, particularly on the PGA TOUR in America.

COLIN MONTGOMERIE: I think it is. I think that is people say this course is dry and it's bouncy and everything, but that is part of golf. The ball does bounce into some places, and you've got to be able to control it and be patient. I think sometimes when you play in America that you hit the ball 157.6 yards and it scoots back 3.2 feet. This isn't like that. It's a more natural game and played on the ground.

And it will be interesting to see artistic shots more than you do possibly in the States. And I'm not saying that's right or wrong, it's just a different form of golf. And we have a different form here, especially with the weather as it is and it's forecast to be the way it is right now.

Ernie's Press Conference

Thought this exchange was interesting from Ernie Els's sitdown with the scribblers:

Q. Kind of curious just where you are in your overall life right now. We've seen with a lot of great players that they transition at some point; Nicklaus moves into the design business, Arnold Palmer moves into the business. Can you talk about that? Not the specific ventures that you're doing, but if you're finding it a challenge to balance that with your golf, et cetera?

ERNIE ELS: Yeah, it's true. You get other interests at some point, and I would say the last two years those interests have become kind of a business, you know. You've got to be careful.

Golf is still my life. That is the core of my life. And without golf I couldn't see myself sitting in an office right now and doing those other things that we are busy with. I've got people in place that are running those different interests. I'm basically sitting back and they're reporting back to me, which is kind of a nice situation to be in. But before I got to this situation where I am now, you had to set it up. And it takes time and it takes a bit of concentration. I wouldn't say that it affected my game. I would say the time that I had off away from the game gave me a lot of time to do those different things.

So I think it's pretty well set up right now, and as I said, golf is everything for me now. I've got a good ten years to do what I've always wanted to do. I'm really just 100 percent playing golf right now.

Q. 100 percent golf?

ERNIE ELS: Yeah.
 

Tiger's Press Conference

Apologies if this is old news, but if you didn't see his comments, there are some interesting things said here that seemingly only could come from either Tiger or Ogilvy's minds.

Q. What were your memories about your dad and this Championship and links golf?

TIGER WOODS: He absolutely loved it when I played at Carnoustie, because it was one of the very few times that he thought I was able to use my imagination and create shots, because in the States we don't get a chance to do that very often because it's always soft and the balls are plugging. On links golf courses you have to use your imagination to create shots. It presents so many different options.

And he thoroughly enjoyed it, watching me go out there shaping shots and hitting all these weird shots. He always got a big kick out of that.

Q. On the same thing, do you think that need to use imagination to conjure up shots is going to limit the number of potential winners? Do you think it makes your test that much easier?

TIGER WOODS: I think playing an Open Championship you always have to hit different golf shots, because of the golf courses we play. We don't play golf courses like this each and every week. And then we certainly don't ever play a golf course this fast. There's only very few, rare occasions we do. And those times you have to be able to control your golf ball in the air, you have to control your spin.

It's not like you can go out there and hit a marginal shot and expect it to be okay. You come in with a wrong spin in the fairways or even on the greens, you're going to pay a consequence of that.

And...

Q. Can you talk a little bit about the imagination you need to use specifically here at Hoylake? Some of the guys were saying they couldn't keep their balls on the greens on the par 3s on the front.

TIGER WOODS: Yeah, you know, some of them. Yeah, if you get downwind it's really hard to keep it on the green, unless you get a chance into the wind to use the wind as a backboard. But when it gets going downwind and the greens are this firm you have to to a front pin, it's going to be really hard to get it close. A lot of good shots here downwind are going to be 20, 30, 40 feet away and it's going to be a good shot.

That's one of the neat things about playing over here is that the galleries certainly understand that. You hear the types of applause; we play around the world and a lot of times the ball gets airborne there's always applause. Over here if you hit a good shot and they know it and it's 30 feet away, there's a pretty good roar, because that is a good shot. The people are very knowledgeable when we come over here and play an Open Championship.

Ogilvy's Press Conference

Forgive if you read this already, but ASAP was slow to post this and since this is my very own clipping library, I have to put these things up! Plus, he has some more interesting things to say.

STEWART McDOUGALL: Good morning ladies and gentlemen. Geoff Ogilvy, thanks for coming across, early in the morning, half past 8:00.

You won the U.S. Open at Winged Foot. Tell us how you find the course here compared to the one at Winged Foot.

GEOFF OGILVY: Well, it's about as different as you can get, I guess. It's a little bit wider off the tee, which is nice. It's a lot firmer, it's probably the firmest links course we've played in a long time. And they've only been running 30 yards, and these are 60 yards. It's perfect, which is the way it should be.

The rough is playable. If you hit it in the bunkers, you're going to be in that's a chip out in most cases, but the rough you have to be able to play from. So in some cases you're laying back with really, really short clubs, just to make sure you don't run out to the bunkers, to give yourself longer second shots, but it's better than being in the bunkers, so it's a fun course.

Q. This course has numerous places where there's out of bounds. Could you talk about how much that affects you and how you play this golf course? And also, could you talk about specifically the 18th hole and if that's as hard as it looks with that out of bounds so far on the right?

GEOFF OGILVY: Out of bounds, the two obviously would be the 3rd and the 18th. The 3rd you have to be cautious, because it's draining so much to the left, so it's probably more a play on the second shot, because you're going to have quite a long second shot in sometimes.

18 is a strange it's a funny kind of tee shot, especially if the wind is pushing it that direction, as well. It's the bunkers that you can't really carry. Yesterday you couldn't carry on the left, so you've really got to start it up the middle and it's quite a weird tee shot. It's one of the strangest holes I've seen but actually quite fun to play, I think. It's a fun hole.

We don't have out of bounds on the last hole on many golf courses. It's going to be interesting. I don't know, I've never really played them much. But it's not like last year at St. Andrews, you can poke it down there somewhere, you have to on the second shot, as well. I mean, it's in play with the second shot. Same with the third and 18th, out of bounds is in play, which is interesting. It's funny, somebody could come back with a 3 on the last or an 8 on the last, which is what you want, I guess, at the end of a tournament.

Q. Would you have thought the U.S. Open would have been your first?

GEOFF OGILVY: I thought the U.S. Open would be my last. Everyone has asked me, I don't know why. For my reasoning it didn't make sense. My reasoning is because I don't drive the ball very straight; that's probably the weakest attribute. But the more you play U.S. Opens, the more you realize that nobody hits fairways. Strikers are missing fairways, so people that hit it a bit wide have probably an advantage, because they're used to playing out of the rough. It's just that narrow.

If you look at the guys up there, Monty is a straight driver, but Phil doesn't hit it very straight. I don't hit it very straight. There's a good cross section of people. It doesn't seem to be only strikers that don't do it well. Maybe my reasoning was wrong, but that's the one I would have picked last. This one is the one I would pick first, because there's a large percentage of the field here that doesn't play or hasn't played much links golf. I always said I have played more than a lot of guys.

Their Own Self-Interest

Ron Sirak has the latest on the LPGA-ShopRite spat in this week's Golf World, with this quote from the Commissioner.

Harrison says Bivens gave his date away while they were still negotiating with the LPGA Tour. Bivens denies that, and the level of acrimony is evident. "I have trouble with her credibility and I have trouble with her integrity," Harrison said.

"We would love to be able to work it out," noted Bivens, "but it hurts the overall product when people care only about their own self-interest."

Isn't "own self-interest" redundant?

Of course Bivens is only interested in dumping the ShopRite for a more lucrative event to increase her Tour's charitable donations. 

Ain't Even Done With The Night

Travelgolf's Chris Baldwin reports that Dan Quayle didn't care for John Mellencamp's comments during a concert coinciding with the has-been celebrity golf tournament. And he reports that Charles Barkley chimed in to defend Mellencamp.

"An impossibly shabby old dame"

Barker Davis of the Washington Times on his accommodations this week:

The Rover is booked into a massive hotel in center city Liverpool (a stunningly dirty port town that should be renamed Cesspool) called the Adelphi. The once-grand Adelphi is one of the largest and oldest hotels in the city. And it's quite clear the owners haven't spent a shilling on upkeep since Bill Shakespeare stayed there.

It's simply an impossibly shabby old dame. The Rover's room is large enough for a basketball court, complete with 12-foot ceilings, intricate molding and gaudy candelabra lighting. But every stick of furniture in the room, all of it gloriously unmatched, is marred by a combination of cigarette burns and stains of dubious origin. The "king-sized bed" is two sagging twins shoved together. Better yet, both are fitted with single sheets, completely dispelling the illusion.

Not only are grime, cobwebs and dust omnipresent, the Rover arrived to find the following objects under a high side table: two cigarette butts, an empty pint glass and two soiled cocktail napkins. And after two visits from the maid, they're still there. Suffice it to say, it's the kind of room where one never removes his shoes, much less his socks.

Dawson: R&A Supports Drug Testing

A largely dull set of exchanges between the inkslingers and R&A head man today at Hoylake. Check out this rivetting opening exchange:

Q. You mentioned the fire engines. Were they going to be on the premises anyway, or have they been brought on because of the situation?

DAVID HILL: The fire station here is about two minutes from the course, and if we had normal weather conditions they would have stayed there because the chief fire officer was quite happy about that. But given the weather, it's prudent for them to come to the golf course, just in case anything should happen.

Q. Number of engines?

DAVID HILL: Two fire engines, which is more than adequate should anything occur. The chief fire officer is very happy with the current situation.

Q. I presume you heard what happened at Hillside yesterday?

DAVID HILL: Yes, we are absolutely aware of that and we've taken the advice of the chief fire officer.

Q. Have the players actually been warned about smoking?

DAVID HILL: Again, we've simply issued the same instructions as we have to the spectators to take due diligence as far as smoking.

PETER DAWSON: Just to be clear, this is not a smoking ban, just asking people to be especially careful.

Q. But they've been given it on a piece of paper, this due diligence, or just made aware of it?

PETER DAWSON: There are notices going on all the scoreboards. We're in the process of actually implementing it at the moment; that's why we're slightly deterring as to whether the players have gotten the paper, but they will be informed.

Jeese, if we couldn't only get them to ask that many questions about the distance issue. Dawson was asked if they had any interest in the winning score:

The score, it would depend on how windy conditions are. We don't particularly mind about the score, as long as we find the best champion. If the conditions stay as they are, I'm sure we're going to see a lot of birdies. And many of the most exciting and memorable Opens we've had have been low-scoring ones. And we don't have a particular problem with that.

Just like the USGA!

Q. One of the newspapers this week said that The R&A are coming under increased pressure to introduce drug testing. Do you particularly feel under pressure?

PETER DAWSON: I don't particularly feel under pressure, let me be clear. I did read some of the reports about this. Our position is that we don't think at the moment that there is much use of performance enhancing drugs in golf. There have been quite a number of drug tests, mainly in France, and the majority of the positive tests were for social drugs, which under The R&A code are just as important as performance enhancing ones.

But that said, we do support the introduction of drug testing in golf, just as we would do in any other sport; we would be anxious to keep the sport free of it. The issue is how do you do that effectively.

And these elite players are playing golf all around the world 52 weeks a year, so it's extremely important that the game, the administration of the game as a whole, professional and elite amateur, introduces drug policies, if not totally together, then close together. The thought that one event in one weekend in 52 can effectively do this I think is not practical, not least because The R&A Code calls for every competition tested at times of the year when players may not be tested. The R&A, while not feeling particularly under pressure in drug testing at the moment, you need anti-doping policies and drug testing to ensure that's the case.

Q. Wouldn't you be the pioneers and everybody would have to follow?

PETER DAWSON: We are pioneering it this year at the World Amateur Team Championships in South Africa. There is going to be drug testing there. The country and the players are aware of it. And we are, if you like, cutting our teeth on making sure that we can administer that properly, as our first step.

Q. Do you call that a dress rehearsal, then?

PETER DAWSON: It's a rehearsal. I don't know when you're going to see drug testing in professional golf around the world, but we would support it.

What better time than now to kill the rally?

Q. You mentioned some quite unprecedented level of interest in the practice rounds here this week. Does that encourage you to be more experimental or adventurous in your choice of Open venues, so The Open appeals to a non-Open Championship audience?

Back to the newsmaking...

Q. What is it that's so difficult about implementing an anti-doping policy, which all sports seem to be able to do so?

PETER DAWSON: There's nothing particularly difficult about it; it is administratively complex. Every sport you read about has disputes about drug tests, don't they? So there are a lot of administrative problems and also costs. But that aside, the difficulty in golf is that not all governing -- not all bodies, rather, in the game, seem to be quite ready to think it's a good idea.

Q. Taking that further, though, Peter, as the law making body for half the world, couldn't you get together these people and get talking about it, or are you already doing that?

PETER DAWSON: Well, we're certainly doing that in our area of what you might call jurisdiction, which is with all the national golf unions around the world who send teams down to the World Amateur Team Championships. There's 60 or 70 countries participating there, and all of those have agreed that there will be an anti-doping policy and drug testing in application there. We are not the governing body, if you like, for discipline on the professional Tours, in Europe, Asia, Australasia, South Africa, America, Canada or South America. That is not an area we could dictate or influence, because it will be influenced by discussion and participation.

Q. Are you planning on doing that?

PETER DAWSON: The conversations about this subject have been going on for quite some time.

Here's a brilliant question. And we can be sure it wasn't an American.

Q. Do you think if the hot weather continues like this that there's a danger the tournament may become a lottery?

MARTIN KIPPAX: Well, I'm not sure quite what you mean by that. I mean, the ball is going to bounce on the golf course, if that's what you're saying. But it's going to be the same for everybody. And they are true links conditions, as you all know. The situation is we've had a very hot period. The course is in good condition, and the fairways are, as we said they would be, perfectly fair. And the rough is the rough. We've had a very strong rough, which is now fading back, if you will, with the heat.

But the reality is that I'm quite sure there would be lottery; as such, it will be the person with the most skill that prevails.

PETER DAWSON: When the ball bounces this much, it's more skillful in some ways, not less skillful. When the greens are like they are, which is they will take a good shot from the fairway, then it's more skillful, not less skillful. This idea that it's a lottery is just the reverse of the truth.

Schneider On TGC's Next Moves

Stu Schneider offers some sound advice to The Golf Channel on who they should hire next.

Hawkins On The Commissioners

John Hawkins in the latest Golf World:

In 2006 we've learned Carolyn Bivens and Tim Finchem share at least one common trait: a zeal for prioritizing revenue generation over the game's competitive welfare, then trying to disguise their corporate mentality by peddling it as progress.

And...

The FedEx Cup format has been panned both inside and outside the ropes, becoming the first playoff series to include more participants than are eligible for the regular season.

Coming off the controversial decision to forsake ABC/ESPN and sign for 15 years with an endemic network such as The Golf Channel, Finchem appears to have bartered his legacy to strengthen the tour's fiscal standing. He calls title-sponsor suits to the podium at news conferences, a practice that further reveals his transparent motives. He uses his own time at the microphone to embark on tangents about the tour's economic prowess, then fends off pertinent questions with his patented semantic splendor.

Open Championship Wednesday Reads

If you aren't quite sure about Hoylake yet, take Golf Digest's interactive map tour which also appeared in Golf World, where Brett Avery provided the text.

Mark Soltau reports that Tiger may leave his driver out of the bag. His 2-iron has replaced his 5-wood. Oh come on Tiger. Don't you want to blow one 100 yards by Nick?

Speaking of our two lovebirds, Lawrence Donegan covers the Faldo-Woods tension fueled by Tiger's press conference. 

Asked about his relationship, Woods was brief. "We don't talk." Asked if they would be conversing much during their scheduled 36 holes together, he was more expansive but not by much. "I have only played with him two times since I turned pro and there wasn't a lot of talking then either." Asked what would be his response if Faldo tried to start up a conversation, he shrugged. "Surprised."

Mike Aitken included this fun little comment from Geoff Ogilvy in a story on the current U.S. Open champion:

"My weakest attribute is my driving. I don't hit it very straight. But the more you play US Opens, you realise nobody hits fairways because they're so narrow."

When the ASAP transcripts are eventually posted (gotta love the one day delays!), we'll see what else Tiger and Ogilvy had to say Tuesday.
 

Patrick Kidd writes about the heat and concerns about brush fires. Naturally we would have banned smoking on the course long ago here in the States.

Martin Johnson has great fun at Seve's expense.

Yesterday, armed only with an iron, the white-hatted Spanish golfing bird hooked one into the orchard, and a marshal who had dispensed with his hard hat on account of the heat hastily put it back on again.

When Seve's around, the twitter of birdsong occasionally becomes intermingled with the chirrup of someone saying: "Anyone seen a Calloway One?", and when he gave it up after a cursory search, it was pocketed by a teenage boy who found it under a hedge. Off he went, doubtless to tell his mates not to bother shelling out 30-odd quid for a box of 12 in the pro's shop. Just follow Seve around for an hour or two.

Ballesteros is playing in his first Open since 2001, and really only to give his caddie a feel for links golf. His caddie being his 15-year-old son Baldomero, who plays off a handicap of one, and who, Seve says, is "better than me that age". However, learning the art of links golf from the old man nowadays won't teach him too much other than how to calculate a yardage from the exhibition tent.

And the driver?

The master escapologist didn't even bother with that aspect of his game yesterday. He hooked two drives off the fifth, one into the rough, one into a gorse bush, and after telling his boy to go and pick them up, dropped another one on the fairway.

Even so, it is not terribly uplifting to watch the great man trying to get around a golf course these days. At 49, the loss of club-head speed left him miles behind his partners, and his relationship with the sweet spot has gone from a love affair to a mild flirtation.

Finally, thanks to reader Thane for the heads up on Ron Kroichick's Open blog.

Norman v. Uihlein

Greg Norman argues for bifurcation, Wally Uihlein fights for his bottom line in Guardian point-counterpoint arguments that have appeared elsewhere. Norman:

The distance that pros hit the ball now is affecting the long-term vitality of the game. Not only are classic courses being made obsolete, strategy and skill are being taken out of golf. And lengthening and toughening courses is adding to the expense and time required for the public to play the game.

Uihlein:

Yet the professional game continues to grow and prosper because of the abilities of the players, and because the rules in place more than adequately control technological influence.

Royal So What?

I devote my latest Golfobserver.com column to the debate over the cops and in-course O.B. at Hoylake, and the lack of exciting finishing holes in the Open rota.

Another Feather In Bivens' Cap

I tell you, I am going to miss her. You can't make this stuff up!

Robert Thompson writes about Carolyn Bivens in Canada and here beyond belief comment to Lorne Rubenstein.

“Lorne, you are much better looking than you sounded on the phone yesterday,” Bivens said. Is it just me, or is this an unusual comment to make to a major newspaper writer in the midst of an interview?

If Tim Finchem said that to Christine Brennan, he'd be packing up his office.