Smoking casts its carcinogenic cloud over golf
Mike Bianchi
March 23, 2008

Remember the old rock 'n' roll song Smokin' In The Boys Room about the teenage juvenile delinquents who used to sneak into the school bathroom and puff away on cancer sticks?

"Smokin' in the boys' roomSmokin' in the boys' room. Now, teacher, I am fully aware of your rules,But everybody knows that smokin' ain't allowed in school."

The reason we bring this up is to point out how smoking may not be allowed in school, but for some unknown reason it's still allowed on the PGA Tour. Which seems almost unbelievable in this day and age when congressional intervention has forced all sports leagues to strengthen their drug-testing policies and start sending the right message to America's youth.

The PGA Tour will start testing for steroids in July, but before the Tour starts worrying about performance-enhancing drugs, shouldn't it first ban performance-detracting ones like nicotine?Congress has made a major issue about pro sports sending the wrong message when it comes to steroids, but what about pro golf sending the wrong message when it comes to lung cancer? Scientific fact: A relative handful of deaths have resulted from steroid abuse; hundreds of thousands die every year because of nicotine abuse."I don't think we have a problem with smokers," PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem said at last week's Arnold Palmer Invitational .”W e have some. We don't have many. . . . I don't think it's worth spending any energy on."

A few years ago, Finchem was similarly nonchalant when it came to mandatory drug-testing of golfers, but finally capitulated amid public pressure. Why there has not been more of an outcry about the Tour's tacit approval of smoking is harder to figure out than the World Golf Rankings.

Maybe it's just apathy – because Tiger Woods doesn't light up, nobody notices or cares. In fact, Tiger, the ultimate competitor, says he has no problem with tobacco on tour and even jokingly encourages cigarette-toking opponents like John Daly to, "smoke more."

Glad to know Tiger is concerned about the well-being of his fellow competitors. But even if you totally disregard the enormous health risks, smoking during competition just looks bad. How are we supposed to take golf seriously as a true "athletic" competition when pros are smoking while they're playing?

Here's all you need to know: Professional bowling doesn't allow its competitors to smoke during competition but professional golf does. Granted, bowling tournaments are held indoors, but it's still embarrassing for the PGA Tour.

Hey, if Finchem is going to allow cigarettes, why not set up a table at every hole so the golfers can have beer and pretzels, too?Seriously, what other professional sport do you know where an athlete is allowed to actually light up during competition? Can you imagine Eli Manning flicking his cigarette to the side just before taking a snap in the Super Bowl? Or Dwight Howard doing his Superman dunk with a Marlboro dangling from his lip? Or Barry Bonds puffing on a Pall Mall while rounding the bases after hitting No. 756?Such scenarios happen in golf all the time. In fact, it happened at the U.S. Open last year when Angel Cabrera not only smoked the field in the final round, but he also smoked about a dozen cigarettes.

"Some players use sports psychologists," Cabrera said then. "I smoke."Another smoker, Frank Licklighter II, when asked at the Arnold Palmer Invitational why he smoked during competition, deadpanned: "It keeps me from killing certain people."

Good line. Bad habit.

Just because a few golfers like Licklighter, Cabrera, Daly, Nick Price, etc., are addicted to nicotine doesn't mean they should be allowed to turn golf's fairways into tobacco road. This isn't the 1950s and '60s when smoking was an accepted part of golf and other sports.

Ben Hogan used to smoke two packs of unfiltered Chesterfield cigarettes per round. Sam Snead used to commercially endorse Lucky Strikes even though he detested smoking. And, of course, Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus were chain smokers in their early days on the Tour.

But Arnie points out he stopped smoking on the golf course in 1962, the same year Jack also quit publicly puffing. Nicklaus told Golf Digest a few years ago that he stopped smoking on the golf course after watching a replay of a playoff with Arnie in the '62 U.S. Open -- a day when the two future legends turned Oakmont into Smokemont."We must have looked like two chimneys," Nicklaus said. "I never smoked again in public after that."Now here we are nearly a half-century later, and cigarettes are still allowed in a sport where Tiger Woods presents a chiseled, sculpted image of health and fitness.Then TV cameras flash to Daly swinging the golf club with a cigarette dangling from his mouth or Cabrera walking up the fairway at the U.S. Open enveloped in a carcinogenic cloud.Just like that, the image of golf as a legitimate athletic endeavor goes up in a puff of smoke.