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Friday, January 11, 2008
Does PGA really need drug testing?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
And so we — speaking of the PGA Tour — move ahead into the second year of one cup and the first year of another. For a whole lot of golf interests the FedEx Cup is still on trial. The other cup is one that involves the somewhat unceremonious process of collecting urine. The professional tour has decided to plunge into the process of testing its players for drugs, outside agents that are thought to enhance performance. Works for racehorses and other professional athletes, so goes the presumption, so why shouldn’t it work for golfers?
At least that’s the apprehension of Tim Finchem, the PGA Tour commissioner, and so he has set the program. He held a press conference the other day, in company with David Fay, executive director of the U.S. Golf Association, and Steve Mona, once head of the Georgia State Golf Association, now about to become chief executive officer of the World Golf Foundation. Not an organization widely recognized, but enough for Mona to give up his place at the head of the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America. Somehow or another, the idea that golf should find itself lumped into the sweaty world of muscle sports goes against the grain. Players being lined up to pee in a cup to be tested like grunt athletes comes across as offensive. Golf, known as “the gentleman’s game,” in which cheating is the most deadly of sins, and the use of enhancing drugs would be cheating. Golfers police themsleves, call penalties on themselves. Imagine, if you will, Bobby Jones, Arnold Palmer or Jack Nicklaus being called upon to prove themselves “clean.”
There is a difference between performance enhancers and substance abuse, though that wasn’t made made clear in the press conference. How, in heaven’s name, could drugs improve Tiger Woods’ performance? That’s a frightening thought.
As it came out in the invocation of the FedEx Cup, there is much yet to be done. “We haven’t worked out the details yet,” it was pointed out, a familiar phrase harking back to the prematurity of the FedEx planning.
Another puzzling observation came across. “We have never concluded that there are substances out there that enhance performance,” one of the panelists said.
Yet, in light of such, the program plods ahead. “Consultants” will be provided, so that players are not going to make a mistake that could lead to a positive test. Open locker-room discussions are planned so that no player leaves a question unanswered. All this is due to be put into effect by July, so it is said. In other words, this is a work in progress, so to speak.
Now, are we speaking of steroids here? Of cocaine, hashish, meth, or merely pot, either of which I know just enough to be ignorant. Just what advantage would drugs give a golfer? Steroids might add distance to tee shots, but no added advantage to putting and the short game. Might help their foot speed, but sprinting comes in handy only getting out of the rain.
What seems to come across is that this creates more questions than answers. Does one guy’s test show that he dabbles in “recreational” stuff, which refers mainly to marijuana, I think? And does that put him on the hit list, and then what?
From the other side of the ropes, seems to me that the Tour is exacerbating a problem that isn’t there. That may sound naive, but from close up, it would appear that drugs would create more of a disadvantage than advantage to the player on tour. Only players inclined toward self-destruction would get involved with the stuff. And as for those so inclined, good riddance.
That having been said, stand by for July, or until such time that it dawns upon the Tour that just because football, baseball, rasslin’ and such sweaty sports have a problem, does it necessarily spill over into golf?
Permalink | Comments (5) | Categories: Furman Bisher, Golf
It could only happen to the Hawks
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
It was as if someone in the NBA office took a hard look at the standings and said, “The Hawks? At .500? Tied for the next-to-last playoff spot? This can’t be.”
And then it wasn’t.
The Hawks awoke Friday at 16-16. They left Philips Arena last night at 15-17. This wouldn’t seem possible, but a slew of things have happened in Atlanta sports this young century that have beggared all belief. From two head coaches being fired on the same day to owners suing one another to a quarterback doing time to a coach leaving to call the Hogs …
And now this: A not-so-instant replay of a game that, for 23 days, the Hawks had every reason to believe they’d won.
Put it this way: As weird as the Falcons’ season was, they weren’t — mercifully, it must be said — ever asked to play a doubleheader.
For 57 days, the result of the Hawks-Miami game of Dec. 19 will be held in abeyance. Indeed, if you clicked on ESPN.com Friday night, the box score of that game read, “In progress, 0:51 OT.” And it will remain so until March 8.
“That’s crazy,” said Josh Smith said, having been informed by reporters that his team had been stripped, at least for now, of one victory. And then, thinking quickly: “I don’t think I can play in that one [the restart on March 8]. I fouled out.”
As coach Mike Woodson met the assembled media in his office, a voice could be heard yelling in the locker room. Quoth the high-volume Tyronn Lue, delivering a mock pep talk for the upcoming twin bill: “We can win that game! We’re going to win two games!”
Not that Tyronn Lue will be a part of the final 51.9 seconds of Game 1 come March 8. He didn’t dress for the fateful December game, so he can’t even sit on the bench in uniform for those 51.9 seconds. He’ll have to change into his work clothes when that one is, once and for all, done.
Said Woodson: “We’ll put our game plan together for those 51 seconds.”
And then they’ll have to turn around and play a 48-minute game afterward. As amusing as this all seems — the long-suffering Hawks can’t even win when they finish a game with more points than the opponent — losing twice on March 8 could put a serious crimp in what has been, at least until Friday afternoon, a season of upward mobility.
Woodson again: “We’re not going to let 51 seconds determine our future.” But then, being the Hawks, they went out and lost to the Wizards in overtime. (Pending official review.)
Said Michael Gearon Jr., one of the Hawks’ many owners: “We’re a team used to adversity.”
There was human error involved on Dec. 19 — Shaquille O’Neal was adjudged to have committed his sixth foul when it was only his fifth — but logistics were also at play. In order to sell more courtside seats for bigger money, NBA teams have shortened their scorers’ tables. This marks the second season in which the Hawks’ stat crew has been separated by 26 rows of seats: The official scorebook is kept at courtside, while the computer system is housed in the aisle behind Philips Arena’s lower tier. Someone sitting somewhere should have noticed the mistake, but apparently nobody did.
The reason the Hawks were hit so hard — “grossly negligent” was the official NBA word — and fined $50,000 and ordered to replay those 51.9 seconds is because they’d had a similar snafu against Toronto last season, when the Raptors were denied a rightful point. Said Arthur Triche, the Hawks’ chief publicist: “In no way was anybody cheating or trying to make money off the [Miami] game.”
OK, so it was an honest mistake. But, as happens on what seems a daily basis in our fair city, a mistake ballooned into something embarrassing, something beyond bizarre. Only in Atlanta, kids. Only in Atlanta.
Permalink | Comments (36) | Categories: Hawks / NBA, Mark Bradley
