No steroid stain on golf — yet

By now, news of still another baseball superstar using illegal drugs isn't shocking or even the least bit surprising.

Last week it was Manny Ramirez. Last month it was Alex Rodriguez. Last year it was Roger Clemens. Before that we had Rafael Palmeiro and Jason Giambi along with strong suspicions against the likes of Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa.

Who's next?

Albert Pujols? Ryan Howard? Phil Mickelson? Tiger Woods?

I'm only partly kidding. But the way things are going, no athlete can be above suspicion, not even golfers.

I've covered golf for 30 years, played it for 40 and one of the things I like best about golf is that it is the one sport where cheating isn't allowed on any level.

In nearly every other sport, cheating is looked upon as part of the game, whether it's offensive linemen trying to get away with holding or players on second base stealing a catcher's signs. As the saying goes, "it's not cheating if you don't get caught."

However golf is a sport of integrity, where players call penalties on themselves all the time, for things as minor as seeing your ball move a fraction of an inch just before impact. In pro golf these penalties often come at the expense of thousands of dollars.

It's not like everyone laughing off how Gaylord Perry was able to throw spitballs for all those years. The last thing a golfer wants is to be labeled is a cheater. Just ask Vijay Singh, who was accused of cheating two decades ago on the Asian Tour, a rap that still follows him around.

When the subject of testing golfers for performance-enhancing drugs was brought up a couple of years ago, most in the golf profession pooh-poohed the idea. What? Golfers would never stoop to using performance-enhancing drugs to get an edge on fellow competitors.

Or would they?

At the 2007 British Open, golf legend Gary Player caused a stir when he said, "There are golfers who are doing something, whether it's HGH, or creatine or steroids. I know for a fact some golfers are doing it."

Player said one golfer had admitted it to him and he figured there could be many more golfers around the world using something, adding "We're dreaming if we think it's not going to come into golf."

At the time, several top golfers such as Woods, Mickelson, Ernie Els and Retief Goosen downplayed the remarks, saying they didn't know anyone who took performance-enhancing stuff.