Pro golf's governing body is being threatened with a lawsuit by a marginal player accused of taking performance-enhancing drugs.Reliable sources report that Doug Barron (left) has a federal lawsuit filed against the PGA for branding him as golf's first violator of substance abuse policies, if that's what it takes to salvage his career. Meanwhile, Barron's playing in golf's version of the chittlin' circuit to keep his name in the news and to try and regain his pro card.
He has claimed that any traces of testosterone and beta (tension) blockers in his system were from doctors' prescriptions, and he even reported his use of them before the '09 St. Jude Classic in Memphis where he got busted. He's suing the PGA for black-balling him for a year unfairly.
Presumable, the PGA has the upper hand and pockets deep enough to bury Barron in the bunkers of he legal system. But if he manages to win acclaim on the upstart eGolf Professional Tour, steroids in golf could become a much more sensitive issue.
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1 comment:
Geo
Thanks to Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire and Barry Bonds, steroids is a household term and the "Steroids Era" is upon us. No sport will be able to avoid the scrutiny and suspicion and many will have to succumb to mandatory testing. It is obvious, also, that many sports' governing bodies were asleep at the wheel while their athletes "juiced away" as was so common at the time. We are now seeing, also, that the lure of tabloid journalism and their boundless spending budgets will produce scores of Dan Bonner's, Jose Conseco's and Rachel Uchitel's. The new challenge for sports commissioners will be damage control, spin and expeditious corrective action. How adept they are at these measures will determine if their sport goes the way of GM, which went belly up and had to be bought out by the federal government or Ford, which turned a handsome 3 billion dollar profit last year.
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