Sorry for those of you (surely all of you?) who hate smug journalists. This week’s T2G is glorying in being proved right. Twice.
In what was supposed to be a quiet week at the most boring course on the PGA Tour (Firestone’s endless up through the trees, back through the trees) all hell has broken loose.
Tiger Woods’ latest injury breakdown to be fair, predicted by anyone who’d taken the time to read even a little bit of internet quackery about microdiscectomy may have served to overshadow the really important development of the week, which was Dustin Johnson’s “voluntary leave of absence”.
The Tour have predictably denied it, but as detailed by Michael Bamberger in SI.com, it’s clearly a suspension, for Johnson’s THIRD breach of the tour’s toothless drug policy.
We knew thanks to Vijay Singh’s lawsuit surrounding his temporary suspension for using deer antler spray that Johnson had breached the policy once, and through the SI.com story it’s clear he’d already undergone a six-week ban which was covered up as a “back injury”.
And the cover-up, which the Tour is falling over itself in pathetic fashion to try and maintain, is the real issue now, rather than the suspension and the regret that a talent like Johnson has such a distraction in his career.
We’re dealing with “recreational” drugs here, but it makes little difference. The PGA Tour’s entire drug policy and their disciplinary procedures are now a laughing stock.
No-one now believes the drugs policy is rigidly enforced if they won’t even publicly shame a player who has broken it three times. No-one now believes it is not selectively applied Singh’s ongoing lawsuit is certain to be won and the Tour better settle quickly unless they want more dirty linen to be displayed in the New York City courts.
No-one now believes Tour commissioner Tim Finchem’s ludicrous assertion still somehow shared by many in the game that golfers have a higher state of morality than your average human being because they sometimes call a penalty on themselves.
But Finchem is not a dictator but a tool of the Tour’s Policy Board. They set the agenda under which the Tour operates, they favour a disciplinary policy that operates like a Mafia omerta to protect an image everyone knows is a complete fraud.
The policy board are the ones that have dragged the Tour’s feet on drugs, on slow play (Jim Furyk is a player rep on the policy board, surprise, surprise) and on equipment technology.
We’ve often stated in T2G that it’s certain there is drug use – performance enhancing as well as recreational in golf. There’s just too much money involved for unscrupulous people not to seek an illegal advantage, and there are just as many of those people in golf as in any sport or walk of life.
What’s needed now is for the Tour to be dragged into the real world at last, for the disciplinary policy to be placed in the hands of independent arbitrators like it is in most other sports and for the drug policy to be hardened and applied without fear or favour.
It might have to wait until Finchem’s impending retiral for that to happen, but it has to happen.
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Meanwhile, who knows how long Tiger Woods will now be gone?
I’ve written many times since March and his back surgery that Tiger needed to take the rest of this year off. That surely is going to happen now, if he is being advised correctly and he recognises that he’s messing with what remains of his career now.
The prognosis is not disastrous. Graham Delaet, the Canadian player who has become a top 50 player in recent times, went through this exact scenario same surgery, same too-quick comeback, same setback. He rested for a further six months and became an elite player.
Tiger can come back, even be a great player again, if he rests. However, he needs to put reins on his formidable competitive drive and to stop this silly, deluded nonsense that because he can cope with a Navy SEAL workout programme he is some kind of superhuman.
“I’ve always been a quick healer” he told us at the Open. Yeah? He’s been hurt more than any seriously good golfer in the game’s history. And half of them have been injuries aggravated by old ones, usually by playing before he was fully healed.
“Most of the people I talked to who have had the procedure have no idea how I’m even back here playing, they just can’t understand that,” he said prior to the Bridgestone, in that occasional, slightly superior “I know better” way Tiger often employs. Ah, sweet hubris.
The Nicklaus target is surely gone now, and that’s got to hurt, maybe even more than his back does. But Tiger has potentially plenty of career left apart from that target, muchy to still achieve and add to his incredible personal honour board.
If he gets properly fit and healthy, who says he can’t have a productive decade in his 40s? If he carries on being this reckless, he risks injuring himself into retirement before long.
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Let’s let the sunshine in for at least a bit this week. Rory is flying right now, and it’s fantastic to see. A bet on anyone else this week at Valhalla where it’s supposed to be his preferred warm and wet conditions is for sport only.
And last week we had (mostly) wonderful weather for the Fairstone Scottish Amateur at Downfield, and a flurry of eagles, birdies and even an albatross.
Yes, the Dundee course’s par of 73 is a bit daft. Of the several par fives, there’s just one where an elite player won’t get up in two in running conditions like last week, although Saturday’s wet weather changed that a little.
But it was much more fun and exciting talking about eagles and birdies than the occasional birdie or par, and right now we have a crop of outstanding talent in the Scottish game.
What was most pleasing, however, was seeing Downfield in such great nick, a credit to the club and greenkeeping staff.
It’s one of our best inland courses and has maybe fallen off the radar of many in recent years. With some subtle adjustments made and the turf in absolutely pristine condition, it’s a pure pleasure to play and to walk.