Monday, August 14, 2006
Golfing on steroids
With all the steroids currently in sports, it's quite natural to wonder if the drug has penetrated the world of golf. As the New York Times muses:
Professional golf finds itself in an unusual position on the sports landscape. Players call penalties on themselves, sometimes costing themselves strokes, victories and money. Cheating is seen as the worst possible sin. But as golf courses grow longer in an effort to combat gains achieved through equipment and fitness, some players openly wonder if golf might follow the perilous path of baseball, where home run chases in the late 1990's may have obscured a darker truth.
Golfers are a facing enormous financial and competitive challenges that can drive them to steroids. Short hitters are staring at courses that are being lengthened in an effort negate the power of Tiger Woods and other prodigiouss hitters. A little extra length off the tee for a short hitter could be the difference between being competitive and struggling to keep his tour card . In addition, golf has become big-money game that markets its power players. PGA pro Joe Oglive is convinced this is a recipe for disaster.
Golf, which doesn't have a testing system in place right now, would be wise to invest in one quickly. As we've learned from other sports, it's much better to be ahead of this curve than behind it.
We market the long ball. We market the guys who hit it 300 yards. If that's your message, and people see that beginning at the high school level, I think as a tour it is very naive to think that somebody down the line won't cheat. As it gets more popular and the zeroes continue to grow to the left of the decimal point, I don't think there is any doubt that there will be cheaters. Golf is all about length, and the U.S.G.A., the P.G.A. of America and, to a certain extent, the PGA Tour are perpetuating it by blindly lengthening every golf course. It doesn't seem like they have a whole lot of rhyme or reason.
Golf, which doesn't have a testing system in place right now, would be wise to invest in one quickly. As we've learned from other sports, it's much better to be ahead of this curve than behind it.
# posted by vinism @ 5:59 AM 
