It's a Tie!

Idaho Statesman column Brian Murphy (no, I couldn't find his first name) polled players at the Nationwide event on drug testing in golf.

During the first round of the Nationwide Tour's Albertsons Boise Open, held Thursday at Hillcrest Country Cub, I posed the same question to 39 professional golfers: "Would you like to see drug testing in golf?"

The results may surprise you — and they may surprise the PGA Tour, which runs the Nationwide Tour and the Champions Tour.

It was a tie — 16 responded in favor of drug testing, 16 were opposed and seven offered no opinion on the matter.

Most of those who said no offered a variation on the PGA Tour's official stance: Performance-enhancing drugs won't help golfers.

"Our players don't kick the ball in the rough and they don't take illegal substances, including performance-enhancing substances," said Bob Combs, the PGA Tour's senior vice president for public relations and communications.

He was parroting the sentiments of PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem, who has been extensively quoted as claiming the sport does not need testing.

"We've never seen any evidence of use nor have we seen evidence that steroids or other performance-enhancing substances would be beneficial," Combs said.

Sheesh...get Bob the latest Finchem take on this. Those lines he's repeating (verbatim!?) are like, so August 2006.