When the news broke about Andre Agassi doing Meth during his career, I thought of posting about when drugs would become an issue in golf. Wouldn't you know it, we now officially have our first player suspended.
Doug Barron, who I've never heard of, has been suspended one year for violating the PGA Tour's substance abuse policy by testing positive for performance enhancing drugs. Under their policy, the tour does not disclose what substance the player abused which is stupid. Not sure why it should be a big secret.
Barron, a 30 year old journeyman who has played eight full seasons on tour, had this to say about the suspension. "I would like to apologize for any negative perception of the tour of its players resulting from my suspension. I want my fellow tour members and the fans to know that I did not intend to gain an unfair competitive advantage or enhance my performance while on tour."
Not quite sure what other reasons there would be to take performance enhancers and his statement sound very similar to other athletes who have been caught such as:
Barry Bonds
Sean Merriman
Marion Jones
Floyd Landis
It will be very interesting to see if the Tour makes the drug policy even stricter with more testing now that one person has been caught. Gary Player did call it a few years ago when he said some players were using.
