Barron case reveals conflicts, mistakes in testing issue

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. -- It's no comic-book story, but without question, the Doug Barron drug scenario is enough to leave both principle parties with embarrassed faces.

The Red Barron case, it is.

Doug Barron hopes to get the ban lifted so he can play at Q-school next week. (AP)

The journeyman pro is seeking legal relief on Saturday in his hometown of Memphis that would allow him to escape a one-year ban for using performance-enhancing drugs, announced last week, and play next week at qualifying school.

In other words, the first ban associated with a positive test on the U.S. tour has turned into a legal battle with the potential for plenty of exposed nerves and head-shaking revelations.

While the rest of the sporting world hits the off switch as yet another doping issue is kicked around, that doesn't diminish the fact that in golf, Barron's case has raised a slew of topical questions and issues that are screaming for transparency or illumination.

At its worst, the case could lay open the fact that the PGA Tour, long presented to sponsors and tournament sites as the most wholesome and honest sporting league in the world, has a gritty underbelly in certain areas, too, like any large sampling of the American public.

Maybe some angels have dirty faces.

To wit:

• One of Barron's attorneys said Friday that in several instances, tour players have tested positive this year for recreational street drugs, which are not subject to the same penalties as performance-enhancing doses. The tour argues that a player smoking pot, of course, is not seeking a potential advantage since it's not a performance-enhancing drug.

Plenty of rumors have circulated this year about positive tests -- Barron's attorney offered no names or first-hand knowledge to support his claim -- but if the case continues in court, the tour could be asked to give an account. Earlier this season at the one-year anniversary of testing, tour commissioner Tim Finchem said that while no positive tests for steroids had turned up, he did not deny that players had tested positive for recreational drugs.

The tour has repeatedly declined to name those players and Finchem, in a jarring conflict of interest that has been decried several times, has complete latitude to dispense punishment for recreational-drug use as he sees fit. In other words, he can do next to nothing and nobody but the offending player would know the nature of the sanction. The tour has never announced fines for disciplinary actions, another frequent point of criticism.

• If the Memphis judge grants Barron's injunction and temporarily lifts the ban, where does he play? He's not listed in the field at any of the second-stage Q-school sites. Play begins Wednesday at six venues across the country.

• The very design of the tour's doping rules is going to come under scrutiny. Buried in the text of the tour doping handbook is a seemingly laughable clause pointing out that, by joining the tour, players waive their right to pursue legal remedy in the event of a positive test result. So here we are, with the very first known instance of a positive test, and a guy is already in a federal court.

• Based on what has been made public to date, and Barron's management missed a huge chance to make him a sympathetic figure by asking him to remain silent, it's hard to engender a ton of sympathy for Barron, who played in one PGA Tour event in 2009 and four on the Nationwide, missing all five cuts.

Barron says the drugs were prescribed by a doctor for medical purposes and he had no intention of cheating anybody, which he claims should be enough to satisfy the tour. I would disagree. If prescriptions were issued solely for legit medical reasons, America would not be drowning in a sea of OxyContin abuse right now. Barron, 40, previously asked for a temporary-use exemption that would have allowed him to continue to take the beta blockers and testosterone, and was denied by the tour.

He did it anyway, then flunked his test at Memphis. He got banned. So what's his beef?

• One area of the tour testing procedures that can stand some scrutiny is the panel of deputized experts used to grant or deny the temporary-use exemptions requested by players before taking a banned substance for legitimate medical purposes. A handful of players have been critical of the panel's decisions. Who are these guys? How many of them are there? Are they drug experts, or are they four monkeys sitting in a room wearing surgical scrubs, flipping coins? Tell us.

• From afar, Barron might want to ask his lawyers and managers some hard questions, too. If in fact he has been taking beta blockers since age 18, when he was diagnosed with a heart issue, then he doesn't deserve a temporary-use exemption.

He deserves a permanent one. He has a congenital issue, a legitimate disability, just like Casey Martin, who successfully argued his case against the tour before the Supreme Court. This is not intended as a bad one-liner on Martin's appeal or malady, but Barron seemingly would have two goods legs to stand on if he pursued the disability angle.

• Finchem deserves whatever hammering he gets in the court of public opinion. Until Tiger Woods backed testing, Finchem had claimed it wasn't needed because of the game's culture of honesty. The tour finally added testing in late 2007, with the rollout in mid-2008.

Barron has already tested positive for knowingly taking a banned substance, and whether he sought an advantage or not, that's a form of dishonesty. Other players seemingly have tested positive for street drugs, which means Finchem's squeaky-clean image isn't quite as pristine as he would like us to believe. I'm not going to get needlessly preachy, but at minimum, street drugs are controlled substances.

Finchem, who hasn't offered a peep about the Barron case, has guys on his tour who have broken the law with regard to drug ingestion and possession, etc. Isn't that as important as breaking a tour rule? Other sports seem to think so.