The Open: Golf ‘can’t afford to be complacent’ over drugs

The European and PGA Tour currently conduct tests on urine samples collected during tournaments, but more stringent procedures will apply from May next year ahead of golf’s first appearance in the Olympics since 1904.

WADA’s testing protocol allows for urine and blood testing in and out of competition, with all players in a testing pool determined by the Olympic Golf Rankings required to provide their whereabouts on an hourly basis from 5am to 11pm for the 13 weeks leading up to the Olympics.

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Asked if such procedures should remain in place after the Olympics, Dawson said: “It’s a matter for the Tours which anti-doping policies they want to operate.

“I would certainly urge that golf moves towards being WADA compliant at all times and right across the world, and I think the game of golf is working towards that.

“That said, it’s still my belief that we don’t have a major drug problem of any kind in the game of golf, but we certainly can’t afford to be complacent and we must continue to test fully.

“Drug testing this week will be conducted under the European Tour’s anti-doping policy and we will be testing players at random, largely on Thursday and Friday, and this is a practice that we’ve engaged in at the Open since the ’09 championship at Turnberry.

“As far as the Olympics is concerned... sometimes the testing will be done by the Tours, sometimes by national anti-doping organisations. But in that testing, it will be expanded from that which golf normally does into blood testing and into the full range of wider banned substances.”

Dawson declined to reveal how many tests would be conducted at St Andrews this week, but said it was a “significant” number.

Last week American Scott Stallings was suspended by the PGA Tour for three months for violating its anti-drug policy, the 30-year-old reporting himself to the Tour after realising a supplement he was taking to combat chronic fatigue was prohibited.

The Golf Channel reported that Stallings was advised by his doctor to take DHEA, an anabolic agent that is the precursor to testosterone production, but did not produce a positive test at the Humana Challenge in January.