The French sports ministry took golfers at the French Open by surprise on Sunday by ordering the first ever drugs testing on the European Professional Golfers’ Association (PGA) Tour.
The measure was announced to the players by the French Golf Federation which organised the event at their headquarters here outside Versailles.
They were told that the first three in the final standings would be tested as well as three other players chosen at random. The first three were winner Philip Golding, runner-up David Howell, both of England, and Australian Peter O’Malley.
England’s Justin Rose tied with O’Malley for third but the Australian was drawn out of a hat to take the test.
The other three tested were Frenchmen Marc Farry and Francois Delamontagne as well as Graeme McDowell of Northern Ireland.
Under the French rules Golding was assigned an escort at the prize giving ceremony and at his victorious press conference.
He said that he had been taking medication and nasal sprays the last two weeks for flu and hayfever but had cleared the drugs with his doctors.
European PGA Tour assistant director for operations David Probyn said that even if a positive test was announced in two weeks time, it would not change the result.
He said that the European Tour was currently working with Wada, the world anti-doping agency, to establish a list of banned substances.
”We are working with them for a policy we can adopt as we want to be administrators and rule makers,” he said.
”At the moment there is not a banned list that everyone is clear on for golf.
”We had to go along with it this week because it is the law of the land here.”
The French government has been aggressive in its dope testing in France following the 1998 Tour de France cycle race which was racked by illegal drug taking.
Golfers are thought to be unlikely to take the kind of performance enhancing drugs that are found in more physically taxing sports, but there have been suspicions that beta-blockers are taken to calm the nerves. – Sapa-AFP