LPGA's Banned Drugs List

Filed in archive Golf News on March 26, 2007

Courtesy: Getty Images

Superstition Mountain Golf and Country Club was the venue for last week's LPGA tournament, the Safeway International.

It could be dubbed "Suspicion Mountain".

When the players checked in prior to teeing it up, they were handed a list of banned substances.

Next year, the LPGA will begin testing its players for drugs.

There are more than 100 banned substances on the list but it's by no means even close to what WADA, the World Anti-Doping Agency, has on its list of no-nos.

Annika Sorenstam is a member of the LPGA's drug testing sub-committee. She readily admitted last Friday that she doesn't know anything about the drugs on the list.

"I don't really know much about drugs other than caffeine and cocaine", she said last Friday. "I have a lot of learning to do", she understated.

She went on to say, "it's a new era for the LPGA. We stand behind it".

And a brave stand, it is. The LPGA is the first professional golf tour to adopt drug testing for its players.

The PGA doesn't do it and has no plans to do it, largely because Commissioner Tim Finchem says he has no reason to think drugs are a problem on tour.

Dick Pound, head of WADA and a former biggie with the International Olympic Committee, might suggest that if you don't look, then you won't find.

The LPGA's list contains 82 banned substances: 33 anabolic steroids, 29 stimulants and 20 beta-blockers.

But they have left a big one off the list: HGH or human growth hormone. This is odd because HGH has become the drug of choice for athletes. A number of cyclists competing on the rich European tour have been nailed for using HGH.

Human growth hormone injections can dramatically increase strength and speed.

Why is the LPGA not going to test for HGH? The Tour's legal counsel, Jill Pilgrim, said it was because "we don't have any evidence that HGH is a problem in women's professional golf.".

That sounds an awful lot like Finchem's view. Expect no evil, see no evil.

The women's tour reasons that there's no need to go whole hog and adopt WADA's extensive list unless there is evidence to do so.

The same logic is being applied to HGH. "It was easier to say, 'Let's leave that off for the first round and let's see where we end up after we start doing some drug testing,"' Pilgrim said.

Well, if you don't test for it, then it won't come up in "the first round" so the Tour will be no wiser.

That aside, you have to applaud the LPGA for embracing drug testing to begin with.

It would be far easier to go the way of the PGA and conclude that there is no problem without having anything other than blind faith to go on.

Professional golf these days is a game of distance. Distance comes from strength and speed.

There are a lot of substances that can provide both of the above.