PGA Tour makes drug testing more stringent with blood tests starting in 2018

The Tour will be adding blood testing and increasing the number of banned substances on their list

The PGA Tour is improving its anti-doping policy by adding blood testing next season. The change is one of two major changes to their policies heading into 2018 with the other being additions to their banned substances list, which will now match the level of World Anti-Doping Association.

According to the Associated Press, this will allow the tour to test for Human Growth Hormones (HGH), a controversial substance that cannot be found in urine. In addition to all of these technical changes, the tour will also announce suspensions for all substances next season as opposed to the current system where only performance enhancing drug suspensions are announced.

The tour's policy has been controversially thin in the past, particularly amid scandals in other sports like cycling and baseball. The problem when the tour went out to disprove the conception that athletes dope was that they didn't want to know if their athletes doped. The tour implemented an extremely flawed system which could be easily circumvented by players.

HGH, which is most well-known for its alleged ties to NFL players recovering from injuries, couldn't be detected at all in the former policy. This new policy brings the tour to WADA standards, and it is also a warning shot to players.

The policy will have a soft open in October of next year, per the AP, with much of the testing still coming through urine testing and only some of it coming through blood. Blood testing will likely become the norm shortly thereafter.