There is no evidence to warrant drug testing in golf, according to Tim
Finchem, commissioner of America's PGA Tour.
Finchem was responding to reports that the Royal & Ancient Golf Club are
working on a new drugs code, partly in response to Australian golfer Craig
Parry's claims that there was widespread use of beta-blockers and partly
because golf may soon become an Olympic sport.
It had also been suggested that random testing of players, conducted by the
World Anti-Doping Agency, could begin later this year.
But Finchem said the matter had been raised twice in the past five or six
years at meetings between the various heads of world golf though not
recently.
"In neither case were we persuaded that the particular suggestions
or comments that were made at those times indicated a need to make changes or
policies," he said.
"We don't recognise a definable list of so-called
performance enhancements in this sport. Nobody has yet to make a case that
there is such an enhancement."
The theory is that Beta-blockers, a prescription drug that lowers the
heart-rate and steadies the nerves, could help a player's putting stroke and
have a general calming effect during high-pressure moments.
Finchem said a number of players who had been prescribed Beta-blockers for
various conditions had given them up because they impaired their performance
rather than helped it.
"The conclusion was that it hurt their ability to play golf. The players who
had prescriptions indicated they couldn't play very well with it and they
discarded it," he said. "So we just haven't had any compelling data which
tells us we should really spend a lot of energy and focus on it although,
again, we keep our eyes open and wait for the medical community to continue
to do their studies."
He said it was a different story with other sports. "It's different in the
totally athletic endeavours of some of the other sports, I think, " he said.
"But we do not feel at this juncture that this is a significant problem (for
us)."
