Opinion & Analysis
True or False: PEDs Cannot Improve a Golfer’s Game
Rory McIlroy said recently that pro golfers should be blood-tested for illegal substances, but that he didn’t see how Performance Enhancing Drugs (PEDs) could improve one’s game, specifically eye-hand coordination, that factor so important to high level golf.
“I don’t really know of any drug that can give you an advantage all the way across the board,” McIlroy said at The Open Championship. “There are obviously drugs that can make you stronger. There are drugs that can help your concentration. But whether there’s something out there where it can make you an overall better player, I’m not sure. Physically, obviously, you can get stronger, recover faster. So, I mean, for example, HGH is only … you can’t really pick it up in a urine test. I could use HGH and get away with it. So I think blood testing is something that needs to happen in golf just to make sure that it is a clean sport going forward.
Well, I agree with him around blood testing as opposed to the present urine testing where some key substances cannot be detected. But whether such substances can make you a better overall player, I beg to differ with Rors.
It’s generally agreed that PEDs can improve performance in baseball, football, swimming, soccer, tennis, cycling, and track and field, improving strength and endurance, and recovery time from injury. Those sports, like golf, also require so much more than those advantages I just listed. For example, eye-hand coordination is an important factor in most of those sports, as are mental aspects like motivation, attitude, determination, body flexibility, inspiration, feel, touch, day-to-day physical health (like flu or cutting your finger preparing breakfast), distressing news from family or friends (Henrik Stenson, at The Open Championship, was mourning the death of a close friend), and current events, like the horrendous terrorist attack in Nice, France, during The Open. PEDs have absolutely no effect on those vital factors in golf, or any other sport. But what they do effect in all sports, including golf, are strength, endurance and time recovering from injury; factors that help pave the way to improvement in performance.
So how can a professional golfer, or any golfer for that matter, benefit from banned substances such as Human Growth Hormone (HGH) and others from the PGA’s official list such as anabolic agents, peptide hormones, diuretics and other masking agents, drugs of abuse, stimulants, and beta blockers? Faced with the likes of longer hitters like Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer, Gary Player was one of the first pros to emphasize exercise to increase strength, endurance, conditioning and flexibility in order to keep pace with those bigger fellows and improve his performance. He did this without the use of PEDs. And with nine majors and dozens of worldwide wins, he did quite well with this exercise regime. He achieved added strength, endurance, flexibility and recovery time via hard work, will power, and the integrity to not supplement his regime with any drug that could have today been construed as illegal.
“If you don’t test,” wrote Don H. Catlin, MD, Founder and CEO of Anti-Doping Research, in a 2004 article titled “The Steroid Detective, published in US News and World Report, “sport is gone. People will start getting really sick. All these things are toxic.”
If Player had instead used PEDs back in his day, as is suspected some are using today, he could have increased his strength, which definitely does help with club head speed, and therefore distance, for all tee-to-green clubs; his endurance, which improves the ability to maintain skills over a four-day tournament; and speed up recovery time from injury, which quite importantly allows one to return to the course sooner. For tour players, this of course translates to possible success and money in the bank to support the family.
Dr. David Geier, an orthopedic surgeon and sports medicine specialist in Charleston, South Carolina, in commenting on human growth hormone, wrote that “many athletes claim to use it to recover from injury more quickly, allowing them to train harder.”
To resurrect or maintain skills, top players may hit 300-500 balls a day at the range, honing and grooving techniques their instructors have gone over. Golf takes that kind of practice and preparation, especially at professional levels. That’s been the case since Ben Hogan dug his game “out of the dirt” to overcome a near fatal car accident, and go on to win six more majors. We don’t know how many balls The Hawk hit per day, but you can bet it was hundreds. I get achy hitting a small bucket a few times a week, so I can imagine how driven and how well conditioned Hogan was.
Tiger Woods took practice to an even higher level, by not only hitting many, many balls each day, but working out intensely in the gym under the eye of a personal trainer. In his prime, Tiger won some tournaments, including majors, via his ability to endure hot summer temperatures because of his conditioning. Later, after surgeries, Woods would often try to come back too soon, and has become unable to sustain the rigors of intensive practice. Some have theorized that Woods may have turned to PEDs to hasten his return to practice and preparation in order to regain the form necessary to perform at before unreachable levels, but those allegations have never been proven. We can only assume, based on negative urine tests, that an impatient Tiger simply did not giving himself enough recuperation time.
And that’s true of many of us amateurs, as well. I was out for almost a year with golfer’s elbow, champing at the bit to return to the game I love. I’d try to hit some balls at times, crossing the boundary of pain, and preceded to re-injure that elbow, adding to the time I eventually was able to return to the fray. Sometimes the ego that says, “I’m ready” or “Just do it” is like a runaway stagecoach, out of control… and intelligence.
But pros are playing this game for a living, and might be tempted to give PEDs a try if they suspect they could help — not improve their skills directly, but speed up the recuperation process to allow them to hone their skills and help get back to work faster. The same could be true around minimizing fatigue over a four-day tournament grind. What a challenge that must be! To play at that level over four days in weather that can include heat, cold, rain, wind, you name it. PEDs represent a potential shortcut in dealing with the kinds of obstacles that make earning a living as a touring pro the challenge it is. Golf, though, is a game of integrity, as it has been since its inception. Still, with the kind of money involved in this modern era, the temptations are there.
Russell Meldrum, MD, Associate Professor of Orthopedic Surgery at Indiana University School of Medicine, wrote in a 2002 article published in Sport Journal: “Drug use is a serious concern, not only for the concepts of integrity and fair play in competitive sports, but because of the health threats to the athletes. Certainly drug testing programs should continue with increasing numbers of athletes being tested and increasing penalties for detection, since these are most likely means of deterrence.”
So can PEDs, such as HGH, improve a golfer’s game? No, as far as swing mechanics, course management, feel, touch, green reading, etc. are concerned. But they can boost the capacity for the golfer to endure more, get stronger, and recuperate faster from injury to allow him or her to gain an edge to hit more practice balls and improve one’s ability to feel more in control of their physical and mental condition.
I vote for random blood testing to definitively keep these substances out of professional golf.
As the editor-in-chief of this website and an observer of the GolfWRX forums and other online golf equipment discourse for over a decade, I’m pretty well attuned to the grunts and grumbles of a significant portion of the golf equipment purchasing spectrum. And before you accuse me of lording above all in some digital ivory tower, I’d like to offer that I worked at golf courses (public and private) for years prior to picking up my pen, so I’m well-versed in the non-degenerate golf equipment consumers out there. I touched (green)grass (retail)!
Complaints about the ills of and related to the OEMs usually follow some version of: Product cycles are too short for real innovation, tour equipment isn’t the same as retail (which is largely not true, by the way), too much is invested in marketing and not enough in R&D, top staffer X hasn’t even put the new driver in play, so it’s obviously not superior to the previous generation, prices are too high, and on and on.
Without digging into the merits of any of these claims, which I believe are mostly red herrings, I’d like to bring into view of our rangefinder what I believe to be the two primary difficulties golf equipment companies face.
One: As Terry Koehler, back when he was the CEO of Ben Hogan, told me at the time of the Ft Worth irons launch, if you can’t regularly hit the golf ball in a coin-sized area in the middle of the face, there’s not a ton that iron technology can do for you. Now, this is less true now with respect to irons than when he said it, and is less and less true by degrees as the clubs get larger (utilities, fairways, hybrids, drivers), but there remains a great deal of golf equipment truth in that statement. Think about it — which is to say, in TL;DR fashion, get lessons from a qualified instructor who will teach you about the fundamentals of repeatable impact and how the golf swing works, not just offer band-aid fixes. If you can’t repeatably deliver the golf club to the golf ball in something resembling the manner it was designed for, how can you expect to be getting the most out of the club — put another way, the maximum value from your investment?
Similarly, game improvement equipment can only improve your game if you game it. In other words, get fit for the clubs you ought to be playing rather than filling the bag with the ones you wish you could hit or used to be able to hit. Of course, don’t do this if you don’t care about performance and just want to hit a forged blade while playing off an 18 handicap. That’s absolutely fine. There were plenty of members in clubs back in the day playing Hogan Apex or Mizuno MP-32 irons who had no business doing so from a ballstriking standpoint, but they enjoyed their look, feel, and complementary qualities to their Gatsby hats and cashmere sweaters. Do what brings you a measure of joy in this maddening game.
Now, the second issue. This is not a plea for non-conforming equipment; rather, it is a statement of fact. USGA/R&A limits on every facet of golf equipment are detrimental to golf equipment manufacturers. Sure, you know this, but do you think about it as it applies to almost every element of equipment? A 500cc driver would be inherently more forgiving than a 460cc, as one with a COR measurement in excess of 0.83. 50-inch shafts. Box grooves. And on and on.
Would fewer regulations be objectively bad for the game? Would this erode its soul? Fortunately, that’s beside the point of this exercise, which is merely to point out the facts. The fact, in this case, is that equipment restrictions and regulations are the slaughterbench of an abundance of innovation in the golf equipment space. Is this for the best? Well, now I’ve asked the question twice and might as well give a partial response, I guess my answer to that would be, “It depends on what type of golf you’re playing and who you’re playing it with.”
For my part, I don’t mind embarrassing myself with vintage blades and persimmons chasing after the quasi-spiritual elevation of a well-struck shot, but that’s just me. Plenty of folks don’t give a damn if their grooves are conforming. Plenty of folks think the folks in Liberty Corner ought to add a prison to the museum for such offences. And those are just a few of the considerations for the amateur game — which doesn’t get inside the gallery ropes of the pro game…
Different strokes in the game of golf, in my humble opinion.
Anyway, I believe equipment company engineers are genuinely trying to build better equipment year over year. The marketing departments are trying to find ways to make this equipment appeal to the broadest segment of the golf market possible. All of this against (1) the backdrop of — at least for now — firm product cycles. And golfers who, with their ~15 average handicap (men), for the most part, are not striping the golf ball like Tiger in his prime and seem to have less and less time year over year to practice and improve. (2) Regulations that massively restrict what they’re able to do…
That’s the landscape as I see it and the real headwinds for golf equipment companies. No doubt, there’s more I haven’t considered, but I think the previous is a better — and better faith — point of departure when formulating any serious commentary on the golf equipment world than some of the more cynical and conspiratorial takes I hear.
Agree? Disagree? Think I’m worthy of an Adam Hadwin-esque security guard tackle? Let me know in the comments.
@golfoncbs The infamous Adam Hadwin tackle ? #golf #fyp #canada #pgatour #adamhadwin ? Ghibli-style nostalgic waltz – MaSssuguMusic
Episode #16 brings us Cliff McKinney. Cliff is the founder of Old Charlie Golf Club, a new club, and concept, to be built in the Florida panhandle. The model is quite interesting and aims to make great, private golf more affordable. We hope you enjoy the show!
Last week, I came across a reel from BBC Sport on Instagram featuring Scottie Scheffler speaking to the media ahead of The Open at Royal Portrush. In it, he shared that he often wonders what the point is of wanting to win tournaments so badly — especially when he knows, deep down, that it doesn’t lead to a truly fulfilling life.
View this post on Instagram
“Is it great to be able to win tournaments and to accomplish the things I have in the game of golf? Yeah, it brings tears to my eyes just to think about it because I’ve literally worked my entire life to be good at this sport,” Scheffler said. “To have that kind of sense of accomplishment, I think, is a pretty cool feeling. To get to live out your dreams is very special, but at the end of the day, I’m not out here to inspire the next generation of golfers. I’m not out here to inspire someone to be the best player in the world, because what’s the point?”
Ironically — or perhaps perfectly — he went on to win the claret jug.
That question — what’s the point of winning? — cuts straight to the heart of the human journey.
As someone who’s spent over two decades in the trenches of professional golf, and in deep study of the mental, emotional, and spiritual dimensions of the game, I see Scottie’s inner conflict as a sign of soul evolution in motion.
I came to golf late. I wasn’t a junior standout or college All-American. At 27, I left a steady corporate job to see if I could be on the PGA Tour starting as a 14-handicap, average-length hitter. Over the years, my journey has been defined less by trophies and more by the relentless effort to navigate the deeply inequitable and gated system of professional golf — an effort that ultimately turned inward and helped me evolve as both a golfer and a person.
One perspective that helped me make sense of this inner dissonance around competition and our culture’s tendency to overvalue winning is the idea of soul evolution.
The University of Virginia’s Division of Perceptual Studies has done extensive research on reincarnation, and Netflix’s Surviving Death (Episode 6) explores the topic, too. Whether you take it literally or metaphorically, the idea that we’re on a long arc of growth — from beginner to sage elder — offers a profound perspective.
If you accept the premise literally, then terms like “young soul” and “old soul” start to hold meaning. However, even if we set the word “soul” aside, it’s easy to see that different levels of life experience produce different worldviews.
Newer souls — or people in earlier stages of their development — may be curious and kind but still lack discernment or depth. There is a naivety, and they don’t yet question as deeply, tending to see things in black and white, partly because certainty feels safer than confronting the unknown.
As we gain more experience, we begin to experiment. We test limits. We chase extreme external goals — sometimes at the expense of health, relationships, or inner peace — still operating from hunger, ambition, and the fragility of the ego.
It’s a necessary stage, but often a turbulent and unfulfilling one.
David Duval fell off the map after reaching World No. 1. Bubba Watson had his own “Is this it?” moment with his caddie, Ted Scott, after winning the Masters.
In Aaron Rodgers: Enigma, reflecting on his 2011 Super Bowl win, Rodgers said:
“Now I’ve accomplished the only thing that I really, really wanted to do in my life. Now what? I was like, ‘Did I aim at the wrong thing? Did I spend too much time thinking about stuff that ultimately doesn’t give you true happiness?’”
Jim Carrey once said, “I think everybody should get rich and famous and do everything they ever dreamed of so they can see that it’s not the answer.”
Eventually, though, something shifts.
We begin to see in shades of gray. Winning, dominating, accumulating—these pursuits lose their shine. The rewards feel more fleeting. Living in a constant state of fight-or-flight makes us feel alive, yes, but not happy and joyful.
Compassion begins to replace ambition. Love, presence, and gratitude become more fulfilling than status, profits, or trophies. We crave balance over burnout. Collaboration over competition. Meaning over metrics.
Interestingly, if we zoom out, we can apply this same model to nations and cultures. Countries, like people, have a collective “soul stage” made up of the individuals within them.
Take the United States, for example. I’d place it as a mid-level soul: highly competitive and deeply driven, but still learning emotional maturity. Still uncomfortable with nuance. Still believing that more is always better. Despite its global wins, the U.S. currently ranks just 23rd in happiness (as of 2025). You might liken it to a gifted teenager—bold, eager, and ambitious, but angsty and still figuring out how to live well and in balance. As much as a parent wants to protect their child, sometimes the child has to make their own mistakes to truly grow.
So when Scottie Scheffler wonders what the point of winning is, I don’t see someone losing strength.
I see someone evolving.
He’s beginning to look beyond the leaderboard. Beyond metrics of success that carry a lower vibration. And yet, in a poetic twist, Scheffler did go on to win The Open. But that only reinforces the point: even at the pinnacle, the question remains. And if more of us in the golf and sports world — and in U.S. culture at large — started asking similar questions, we might discover that the more meaningful trophy isn’t about accumulating or beating others at all costs.
It’s about awakening and evolving to something more than winning could ever promise.
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Pingback: PEDs in the MLB – Sports
mannyv
Aug 14, 2016 at 8:39 pm
To the first poster. TW has always been an athletic freak. When he was at Stanford he was the strongest athlete pound for pound football team included.
Remember when he won the Masters in 1997 as a skinny kid he was hitting pitching wedge into to 500+ yard par four while other players were using 4 irons.
Justin
Aug 16, 2016 at 11:34 am
“He was the strongest athlete pound for pound football team included”
There’s not a chance in hell that’s true!! Have you seen pictures of him when he was at Stanford? Everyone on the Stanford Football team is laughing at you right now. What a ridiculous comment!
CW
Aug 19, 2016 at 10:10 pm
Really,i heard he used his putter.
Also,i heard he used to flap his arms really really fast and was able to fly over the course before playing it..
Dave
Jun 2, 2018 at 1:15 pm
LOL- That’s a good one…
AllBOdoesisgolf
Aug 11, 2016 at 1:34 pm
look what happened when Tiger was on them and then look what happened when he stopped because they started testing…..
Tom
Aug 11, 2016 at 2:56 pm
You could walk onto a highschool football field and find five kids who are in just as good of shape as Tiger ever was. He was in great shape, but he wasn’t anything spectacular in terms of the fitness world. Compared to other golfers, yes, he looked like a powerhouse, but you wouldn’t have to look far in the closest Golds Gym to find someone warming up with Tigers max weights, all while doing it drug free. On top of that, PED’s would have nothing to do with Tiger’s injuries. If he were doing them, I would assume he would have proper council, and would have gotten certain ones that would’ve helped him feel much better through the latter few years of his career.
CCshop
Aug 12, 2016 at 5:16 pm
So your saying I could go into any high school and find 5 kids that could go through the rigorous Navy Seal training that Tiger was doing. Doubt it. He ruined his body during that training and with how much he lifted outside of golf. Not sure 5 kids I went to high school with could have done the same.
Tom
Aug 11, 2016 at 9:20 am
Depends what PED’s people are talking about…
General PED’s in the sense of steriods and muscle growth… Very debate-able. You could argue that they enhance athletic performance and that’s better for just about anyone and anything you do that’s sports related, but let’s remember: Furyk shot the lowest round in golf history this weekend, and if that man takes PED’s, someone will have to scoop my jaw off the floor for me.
I propose looking at it from a completely different angle: Are steroids necessary to perform at a high level in golf? No.
If you took them, would they help you perform to that high level? NO.
Golf is a game of accuracy, not just distance. If you look at the guys with the most strokes gained putting, you’ll generally find them around the top of the leader board.
Now, if you bring in things like amphetamines, beta blockers, etc.. that could be, and IMO is an entirely different story. It’s been said at minimum a million times: “Golf is a mental game.”
If hitting the ball further was all that the game required, then yes, the PED’s which enhance athletic ability may give you an edge, but even then, it’s doubtful. Jamie Sadlowski is a prime example: Trains hard, athletic, sound mechanics, but does not possess a skillset that can be obtained by PED’s, nor would he be helped by them. If anything, MOST PED’s would hinder what gives him the ability to hit the ball like he does.
However, on the course, the drugs that give an advantage to the mind.. Something to help you focus on the 18th tee when you’re T1. Something that kills the nerves for the 10′ down hill putt for a +$1M purse and a major title. Those are what will help golfers.
I’ve played my best golf when I’m focused and relaxed, not when I’ve been in the best shape of my life.
Side note: People look at Tiger and Rory like they’re freaks. Compared to the golfing world, they are freaks. But put them in a gym with a group of guys who truly know how to train, and they’re mediocre in size, at best.
KK
Aug 14, 2016 at 12:41 pm
It’s farther, not further. And Furyk with the power of DJ would’ve shot 54.
Amp
Aug 11, 2016 at 3:23 am
Adderall helps me a lot. I get a lot of focus and concentration from that stuff. If I didn’t get it, I’d go lazy and my mind will wander. I don’t play serious competitions, just play recreationally, so don’t put the evil label on me, I am responsible, I wouldn’t ever try to cheat this way.
It’s crazy to think how old this drug really is. Makes you wonder who was using it back in the day without the kind of detection methods we now have in the modern world. But then again, you can ask that about so many drugs, including drugs of abuse, some of which weren’t even considered as such until somewhat recently.
The world is changing rapidly now, and nobody will be able to cheat this way. And it’s good that everybody will have to submit to testing.
KK
Aug 10, 2016 at 11:07 pm
No question it’s true. Golf is easier with more athletic ability and PEDs increase athletic ability. Faster recovery is also an underrated benefit. This is an exaggeration but imagine Tiger with the healing power of Wolverine. He’d have 30 majors by now. HGH is much less than being Wolverine but it’s measurably better than no HGH.
BSGolf
Aug 10, 2016 at 12:18 pm
I vote do whatever you want to do to your own body…God made it for humans to use…Drugs are good and professional golf is entertainment…let the syringes fly and lets see someone on Beta Blockers shoot 54
Justin
Aug 10, 2016 at 2:24 pm
One man’s demise is often at the detriment of many
Justin
Aug 10, 2016 at 12:12 pm
If you don’t think PEDs (specifically anabolic steroids, peptides, and hgh) can help improve a golfers game, then you probably don’t know much about PEDs. Unlike most other sports, there is such a thing as being too “big” for golf. You can be fat and golf just fine, but it becomes increasingly difficult to repeat a swing when muscles that are huge get in the way. Tiger, at his physical peak, never had muscle size that approached the size of many other athletes in many other sports. Yet, some still argued his size was holding him back and decreased his flexibility (which may have lead to some injury issues he has and is now dealing with).
What most people don’t realize is steroids alone will not grow huge muscles. Steroids are simply a “booster” for the incoming nutrients. If you continue to eat a normal diet, you likely won’t get much bigger. The guys and gals that gain tons of weight through the use of steroids are eating far more calories than normal. The steroids allow your body to use more of these incoming nutrients and convert them into muscle whereas they would normally be wasted or converted into fat. Think of steroid use as a time travel device…they’re simply speeding up the process (and in some cases pushing you past your physical limitations). What you could accomplish in 2 years of hard work can likely be accomplished in 6 months or less.
As for practical use in golf, you can still eat a “light and healthy” diet while on steroids and increase strength. Your muscles will certainly grow a bit, especially if you jump right in without a ton of prior history of intense weight training. But the main benefit here for golfers is recovery time, and because they are not worried about gaining muscle all that fast, they can use some of the lighter drugs that the body builders don’t even bother with. Instead of “bigger, stronger, faster” you get “stronger, leaner, fresher.”
ALL YOU REALLY NEED TO KNOW ABOUT HGH….
Most people know it can help accelerate injury recovery. Some scientists will debate that it has any effect on injury recovery, but I’ve seen it first hand and can tell you the results are unbelievable. In just the first week on HGH, your body will “force” you to catch up on the sleep you’ve been missing out on. You’ll be very tired during the day for most of the first week and may be forced to nap occasionally. After that, you’ll notice you are sleeping much better at night and wake up feeling looser and more refreshed. I would think that right there would help to heighten focus indirectly if nothing else. Like most of these drugs, at a certain point you get diminishing returns because the body builds up a tolerance. Users are forced to cycle them to give their receptors a chance to refresh (again, this is debated, but it works time and time again in real life). But now, with the introduction of peptides, you don’t even have to cycle off. HGH is an exogenous hormone that both suppresses and replaces your natural GH production. Most people believe that steroids and HGH “add” to your natural levels, when in fact they completely flat line your natural production. This is the main reason why they are viewed as dangerous or risky, and rightfully so. Now athletes are using HGH in conjunction with peptides such as GHRH and GHRP to benefit from both natural and exogenous production. This is achievable because of the short half life of these items. GHRH and GHRP work together to increase both the number of receptors producing natural GH in the hypotahlamus and increase the output of those receptors. So, you can cycle peptides and HGH at intervals throughout the day to achieve maximum results without ever having to come off (theoretically).
Now you know that it sounds like a pain in the ass (literally and metaphorically) to use steroids and HGH… would you do it if you know you wouldn’t be caught and it would increase the chance of financial success in your life? This is what these guys are faced with and I really hope that golf is enough of a gentleman’s game to simply weed out the users who shouldn’t be there. Physical fitness is more important in the game now than ever. Even Andrew “Beef” Johnston works out hard so he can have a consistent swing (even though his body may not show it!). I think long term we’ll be seeing more and more instructors teaching a swing that stresses preservation of the body. I can’t help but think guys like Rory McIlroy and Jason Day will have injury issues in the future because of the torque they create in their swings. I really hope they play forever and never get injured, but it seems like a high probability that they will. Remember, chicks dig the long ball… but you can only hit the long ball if you are able to walk out onto the course!
LT
Aug 10, 2016 at 1:00 pm
You know nothing. Got all that from Google, didja?
Justin
Aug 10, 2016 at 2:22 pm
Because I’d love to spend my time regurgitating info from Google…
There is so much misinformation out there and most people refuse to listen to the things I have to say, but that’s not my problem. Take from this what you will but it should be very informative for the 7 people that will actually read the entire comment
LT
Aug 10, 2016 at 10:12 pm
Everybody already knows everything you said. It makes you sound like an idiot for repeating it over and over
Justin
Aug 11, 2016 at 11:31 am
Since when do you refer to yourself as Everybody
snowexcuse
Aug 15, 2016 at 2:02 pm
I thought your post was great, thank for the write-up. I did not know the specifics of PED use.
Justin
Aug 16, 2016 at 11:36 am
Thank you! Finally someone that shows LT is the real idiot!
Jim
Aug 11, 2016 at 3:06 am
I have a ‘broken back’ and have been teaching a biomechanically more correct swing for 20 years. It works, it’s powerful, the derotational shear forces are dispersed over a greater ROM. Increased emphasis on hand speed, maintaining spine angle during winding up & shifting well before unwinding front hip and speeding up the hands. I turned pro in 95 after breaking my back in 1990…from 97-2001 I was averaging 298 off the tee and 150 was a 9 iron.
The only time I ever hurt my back moving this way was when I slipped on a tee shot with those shitty 1st gen soft spikes! I’ve taught over 100 students with back injuries who saught me out and have had success with everyone. (No one’s back ‘fixed itself’ and some with degenerative or arthritic conditions continued to deteriorate, but no one ‘hurt their back’ swinging this way. Most played more often, hit bigger buckets at the range with less or no pain than ever before.
ps…tell Tiger to see me 😉
Jim
Aug 11, 2016 at 9:03 am
I had a few broken bones and from the usual foorball, rugby stuff, my service, but it was a fall at the WTC pile during the ‘rescue phase’ after
9/11 when everything held together with spit n duct tape finally broke. I had 3 lower back surgeries in 01-02 and 2 C Spine surgeries in 03. 2004 was mostly all rehab, strengthening and relearning another ‘bad back’ swing…2005 was
my first year back fully employed on green
grass teaching and playing with members daily.
I have pain everyday – some days worse than
others, and in 2014 I finally had my shoulder rebuilt
This was by far the most painful surgery I ever had and the 16 week recovery was brutal.
If taking some kind of steroid or HGH or whatever MEDICINE my doctor could have given
would’ve helped speed the recovery time – I
would’ve taken it. I’m still working to strengthen it and may end up with a 20-30% loss. Balls definitely aren’t goin as far anymore.
So, if say I’m playing in a section event or a Monday 4 spot and by some miracle get in, am I cheating taking my pain pills (without which I can’t play 18 holes or work a full active day) or some Medicine helping my torn up miscles heal?
There was a thread about what Jimmy Walker was thinking on that last putt…If he was taking Ritalin – I’M NOT EVEN suggesting he was, the hole would’ve looked 3 times bigger and all he woulda been thinkin is ‘back of cup’…
THAT’S a PED drug for golf
Tom
Aug 11, 2016 at 2:52 pm
HGH is a little different than you’re making it out to be in your post.. It heals and actually creates more cells, but isn’t one of the drugs that has direct strength or endurance properties. It enhances size, burns fat, and helps your tendons and ligaments heal significantly faster by creating more cells. That being said, your head, hands, heart, and other internal organs will grow. If you look at a body builder who seems to have a big gut, even though he’s sitting there with 3% body fat, that’s because HGH caused his intestines to grow. Pretty nasty.
Before you reply, I do happen to know quite a bit about PED’s.
Golfers don’t need PED’s. It’s not a game of strength. Endurance is necessary, but as long as you can swing as fast on the 18th tee as you did on the 1st tee, you’re pretty much set.
As said in a post before, Furyk just shot the lowest round in professional golf history, and although I can’t be certain, I’d be pretty dang surprised to hear he did any kind of drugs to get there.
Justin
Aug 16, 2016 at 11:56 am
You say HGH doesn’t have direct strength properties and then immediately after you say it enhances size. Don’t you think it’s highly probable (if not absolute) that when your muscle size increases that your strength would also increase? It goes along with the common misconception that Steroids alone increase muscle size, without caloric intake increase or resistance training… which is simply not true.
It’s actually debatable whether HGH actually enhances muscle size at all. The only direct way it could enhance muscle size would be through Hyperplasia, which hasn’t been proven to take place within the human body yet. To effectively “gain” muscle size on HGH, you have to use so much of it that you start to run into problems like acromegaly (unnatural growth), which is normally caused by a pituitary tumor but in this case is caused by an “overload” of sorts.
The distended guts of bodybuilders are likely not the result of overuse of HGH. The reason they look that way is a visceral layer of fat has formed underneath their abs and to me and many others, the only logical explanation for this is the rampant use of insulin. It’s likely that not many people know about the use of insulin to increase muscle mass, but the effects can be more dramatic than steroids. I won’t go into it in detail because the topic here is golf, but just look at a pic of Ronnie Coleman at any Olympia he won vs a pic of Arnold at any Olympia he won. One will look much bigger and the other will look much better.
I don’t doubt that there could already be PGA Tour players using HGH. The routine to use it effectively is very “needle intensive” because of the very short half life of the drug and I would think this would be inconvenient for the schedule of a golfer when compared to other sports. Golfers do not need PED’s, but I’m certain that they help give an unfair advantage when used properly. Recovery time is something that is rarely discussed because you can’t see it compared to the bulging muscles, but it’s more important than the actual strength gains.
If Jim Furyk is on Steroids then we should suspend the entire sport, haha.
Ken
Aug 11, 2016 at 7:10 pm
Can agree with you as in early 70″s had two fiends both win some middle level body building contests (both were good enough to get some face time with Joe Weider, and in his magazines several times) We talked about steroid use a lot and it was very clear it gave them the ability to work out longer and add weight faster, and the eating was key…. 2 year gains in 6 months sounds very fair for top body builders like them.
SV
Aug 10, 2016 at 12:10 pm
I have found beer helps tremendously, or at least it takes the sting out of playing badly.
LT
Aug 10, 2016 at 10:12 pm
Yeah, the original swing juice
Robert
Aug 10, 2016 at 12:04 pm
Some PED’s can improve eye sight as well, which can improve hand eye coordination. If you don’t believe PED’s can help you in golf, you are just sticking your head in the sand. It helps in everything. And I don’t blame any player that is just trying to survive out there for doing them if they end up being a steady member on the tour. It’s their livelyhood. I do whatever I can to be better at my job. Why wouldn’t they?
joe
Aug 10, 2016 at 7:29 pm
Because it is CHEATING!!!!!
Christosterone
Aug 10, 2016 at 11:51 am
The same discussions took place back in the 80s regarding baseball…we all know how that turned out…
NEWSFLASH: steroids are super helpful in every single sport….with absolutely no exceptions.
-Christosterone
Messico Smizzle
Aug 10, 2016 at 12:09 pm
agreed
alexdub
Aug 10, 2016 at 11:42 am
Obviously, no one believes that taking PEDs are going to fix your swing flaws. However, PEDs can have a substantial effect on endurance and recovery. Every one of us—including pro golfers— has been at that 4 hour mark of a round when your body starts to give in a little. Mental lapses in concentration often follow physical lapses in strength. I don’t think PEDs are a cure-all, but I do think that they could help. The PGA should have an open and regular testing process.
ta
Aug 10, 2016 at 11:33 am
PEDs includes so many drugs. The list is huge. Some simple drugs, other than Steroids or HGH, can have instantaneous benefits, and that is why it is on the list. Just because people see the label as PED doesn’t mean it’s some kind of mega drug that only wealthy athletes can buy from a specialized source. You are neglecting to mention basic drugs that you can buy over the counter, such as some ingredients found in cold and allergy medications.
ooffa
Aug 10, 2016 at 10:17 am
They may not improve ones game, but they sure can hasten the end of ones career. It happened to Tiger. Now it’s happening to Rory.
Tom
Aug 11, 2016 at 9:24 am
Tiger and Rory have very aesthetic, and athletic physiques. They’re in great shape, but they don’t have anything that isn’t attainable naturally.
They have the build of dang near everybody I ever played sports with and lifted with. It’s impressive to the golf world because we are used to looking at John Daily-esque guys walking around the course. However, comparing them to others in the fitness world, they’re just in great shape. It’s very impressive, but it’s honestly nothing crazy..