With steroid scandals exploding in various fields of professional sports, particularly baseball, football, wrestling, and boxing, it is difficult not to wonder just how expansive steroid use among athletes may have become. Fans, media and the public are becoming wary and more suspicious about the integrity of athletes, and throwing suspicion in the way golf professionals is not unlikely. One good thing about golf is that cheating is not tolerated on any level as opposed to other sports where a culture of impunity when it comes to cheating, particularly in the use of performance enhancing drugs, has monstrously developed. In other sports, cheating is deemed as a part of the game with an adopted maxim of “it’s not cheating when you don’t get caught.”

In golf, integrity is taken very very seriously, to the point where players call penalties on themselves. Something as minor as a golf ball moving a fraction of an inch just before the point of impact is already reported as a penalty, and to think penalties in professional golf cost thousands of dollars. Being labeled as a cheat in golf is the last thing a pro golfer wants, unlike in other sports where a cheater can shrug off the label and continue playing and still have a huge following. Accused of cheating on the Asian Tour some two years ago, Vijay Singh finds that the label is slow to wear off, haunting him still.

A few years ago, there was a talk of testing pro golfers for possible use of performance-enhancing drugs. Most of those in the golf profession simply dismissed the idea and suggested that golfers would never stoop so low as to use performance-enhancing drugs to get an edge over their opponents.

In the 2007 British Open, however, pro golf star Gary Player contested this belief saying that there are golfers who are using performance enhancing drugs—whether it is HGH, steroids, or creatine. He is not certain but he knows for a fact that some golfers are doing it. Gary Player added that one golfer in particular admitted to him that he was using banned substances to enhance performance, and Player figured that there could be many other professional golfers around the globe who were using something. In his opinion, “we are dreaming if we think that it is not going to come into golf.” When asked, top golfers such as Tiger Woods, Ernie Els, Retief Goosen, and Mickelson said that they did not know of anyone in the sport who took performance enhancing substances.

Parallel to professional baseball, the fact remains that golfers are hitting exponentially better than two decades ago, as much as 40 yards or more. Granted, golf clubs and golf balls have improved, as well as the fitness, know-how and techniques of golfers. Still, one can’t help but question whether part of the improved fitness and technique may have been derived from steroids or other such performance-enhancing drugs. Former PGA Teacher of the Year, Dr. Jim Suttie, has commented that steroids could indeed possibly help golfers to hit better and farther due mostly to increased strength and muscle—meaning more arm, hip, and core strength.

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