ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. -- He could have gone in any of a variety of directions.
Cornered at the World Golf Hall of Fame induction ceremony for the class of 2009, Tim Finchem wanted no part in any hot-button discussion regarding a guy who won't be setting foot inside the hallowed hall. Unless he buys a ticket.
The loquacious commissioner of the PGA Tour, who for years resisted testing for performance-enhancing drugs because he believed there was no reason to believe cheating was taking place among his players, was uncharacteristically mum when one of his players finally flunked an exam.
Was this inevitable?
Was he disappointed or embarrassed?
What about surprised?
He stood there looking at three 80 mph fastballs fired over the plate by yours truly and didn’t take the bat off his shoulder, even though he quite likely should have been swinging from the heels as a means of defending the sanctity of the game.
"I don’t have anything to say," Finchem said.
How about, "OK, so maybe I was wrong."
In what is believed to be the longest disciplinary suspension ever meted out by the tour, journeyman Doug Barron on Monday was suspended for one year for testing positive for undisclosed performance-enhancing drugs, the first player banned under the new doping policy.
In a way, perhaps it's understandable that a player like Barron was the first player ever to be benched for violating the new edict. His career was fading faster than a 40-handicapper's tee ball. Barron, 40, made 238 career starts over his career in the game's big leagues, but has been mostly stuck on the developmental Nationwide circuit for three seasons. Barron had last played fulltime on the PGA Tour in 2006 and was fighting to revive his career.
Prominent or hugely relevant, he isn't, but that didn't minimize the potential news impact.
The tour, which implemented the anti-doping policy in mid-2008, issued scant details, including what banned substance was involved. The tour has a lengthy appeals process, which involves testing of a B sample, so the positive test result could have taken place months ago. Barron's suspension was effective immediately, which in a perverse twist means he'll make as much money in tour-sanctioned events in 2010 as he did in 2009 -- zero.
Barron played four times this year on the Nationwide and once on the PGA Tour and didn’t make a cut. The Nationwide began testing for drugs in September, 2008.
Approached before the ceremony, Finchem didn’t offer any opinion, much less illumination, on the tour's public-relations black eye.
"I don’t have anything to say," Finchem said. "Nothing I can say, no comment. It is what it is; all you need is right there in the statement."
Not exactly. Finchem resisted the implementation of testing for years, claiming he was personally certain that golf didn’t have the same cheating issues as other sports. It has a different culture, he insisted, where honesty rules the day.
For sure, one positive test isn't much in this era of blood transfusions and hyperactive hypodermics, but Barron's it nonetheless test results certainly besmirched the reputation of the game and put a dent in Finchem's holier-than-thou persona.
Barron wasn't exactly a beacon of clarity on the matter.
"I would like to apologize for any negative perception of the tour or its players resulting from my suspension," Barron was quoted as saying in a statement issued by the tour. "I want my fellow tour members and the fans to know that I did not intend to gain an unfair competitive advantage or enhance my performance while on tour."
Art Horne, Barron's agent, said his client and the tour agreed not to say much on the matter, including whether Barron tested positive accidentally, which seems to be the implication.
"I wish I could say more, but I can't," Horne said.
Or won't. The tour stated when the policy was adopted that it would "out" the players who tested positive, but the organization stopped far short of telling the whole story. He took a performance-enhancing drug, but wasn't seeking to gain a competitive edge?
Barron isn't exactly the rippling-muscle type. In fact, he looks like an average schlub.
"One of the funniest things I've heard today is when one of his friends called him to say, 'If you were trying to build more muscles, you did a pretty bad job,'" Horne said.
There was some collateral damage. The Barron news, to a large degree, cut the publicity legs out from under the World Golf Hall of Fame induction ceremony on Monday in St. Augustine, which had some staffers at the museum rightly grousing about the timing, since this is the biggest day of the year for the game's shrine.
Finchem indicated that he waited to make the Barron announcement until he informed the PGA Tour Policy Board, which met earlier Monday in a nearby hotel at the World Golf Village.
"I took the opportunity to inform the board beforehand," he said.
At least he told somebody about it, right?
