The President's Cup begins tomorrow at Royal Montreal. On the eve of the competition, Tiger Woods stated very clearly his views on drug testing in the sport.

"Given how honorable our sport is and always has been, I think the penalty has got to be significant".

Woods has been in favor of drug testing since Tim Finchem emphatically claimed that the sport was clean but golf was going to get in line with other sports around the world, anyway.

Indeed, the notion that golf is clean is adhered to vehemently by the R&A as well as the PGA Tour.

That august body is in accord with the PGA and the other governing bodies that there's no need to adopt the list of banned substances used by the World Anti-Doping Agency, WADA.

"We've no reason to believe golf is anything but clean", says Peter Dawson, chief executive of the R&A.

Finchem says there's no need to adopt WADA's list because two banned classes of drugs on that list - glucocorticosteroids and beta-agonists - could never improve a golfer's performance, so why spend the time, money and energy monitoring those two?

Enter Dick Pound, president of WADA and a guy who likes a dog fight as much as Michael Vick.

Pound's view is simple. "My question to golf would be: Is there anything on the list under the world anti-doping code that you think your players should be able to take?
And if there is, then golf should indicate what they think their athletes should be able to take that the rest of the athletes around the world can't."

Finchem already has. In effect, he's saying there is nothing about a golf swing that can benefit from these two classes of drugs and there is no other sport on the planet that has a motion comparable to a golf swing. So, all other athletes can never take glucocorticosteroids or beta-agonists but golfers can.

Is that intelligent? When you make exceptions, you create loopholes. And loopholes have a way of growing and growing. If all of golf's bodies agree to finance a policy and testing procedure for a list of banned substances, does it make sense, as Finchem believes, not to test for two drugs simply to make the administration of the policy easier?

How much easier and cheaper is it to administer a policy with, say, 16 banned substances than 18?

I don't get it. By the way, glucocorticosteroids can increase blood flow and heart rate and enable the body to handle stress and make the user more alert. Beta-agonists work to relax muscles in the airways, making it easier to breathe.

I guess golfers couldn't benefit from either of these.

One final topic for the day. The strong Canadian dollar - now virtually on par with the U. S.dollar for the first time in over 3 decades - is having an impact on the Canadian golf scene.

Moneris Solutions, an electronic payment processing provider, says recent data shows the number of American golfers playing Canadian public courses in July and August was off 14% over the same period last year.

Certainly, the Greenback is a 98 pound weakling against the euro these days, too.

My guess is that tourist traffic to American courses is going to shoot up in the months ahead. If you live in the southwest or southeast, look out this winter. You're going to hear a lot of foreign languages on your courses.

Of course, Canucks speak English. But you can spot us a mile away - we all wear toques.