Of Veej I Singh

I've had Vijay Singh on my blogging to-do list for some time (I know, the lonely lives of bloggers), and those that make a living at this golf writing thing have finally provided the necessary link bait.  As I kicked off this blog around New Years I had plans, since abandoned, of doing the obvious 2014 projections post.  Had such a post materialized, it would have included my expectation that the most fun in 2014 golf is likely to come from public disclosures related to Singh's suit against the PGA Tour.  Hold that thought as we delve into some deep background.

First the career, which is clearly of Hall of Fame caliber, including 34 PGA Tour victories and 22 additional victories around the world.  Included therein are his three major championships, the 1998 and 2004 PGA Championships and the 2000 Masters, the latter which denied Tiger the calendar slam.  Vijay led the PGA Tour in earnings three times, and was one of only two players (the other being David Duval) to hold the No. 1 ranking during the period that I refer to as Peak Tiger.

The Big Fijian, The Cheatin' Fijian or The Prickly Fijian?  You decide.

The most notable aspect of Vijay's career is the late peak, and in 2007 he broke Sam Snead's record for wins after age 40.  In 2004 The Big Fijian won nine times on the PGA Tour, at age 40-41 no less.  Perhaps all those hours on the range paid off?

First up in terms of linkage, is Alex Micelli's mostly laudatory profile for golf.com, the grab for which is below:

Winston Churchill famously described Russia as “a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma” in a radio broadcast in the early days of World War II. Seventy-five years later, the former British prime minister’s words could describe one of golf’s biggest mysteries.

Vijay Singh.

This conforms to other accounts I've read of Veej's personality, publicly stand-offish but privately engaging and generous.  I'm generally willing to give public personalities some latitude in this regard as, blogging fame notwithstanding, most of us don't have to deal with the public in the manner of a world class athlete.  Pace Stephen Wright:  "You know what's wrong with public transportation?  The public!"

Now, you'll have correctly intuited that there's a "but" on it's way, and it's a big hairy one at that.  The basic outline of the tale is that, at the 1985 Indonesian Open, Singh improved his score in the second round by one stroke, that stroke ensuring that he made the 36 hole cut.  To this day Singh continues to deny any culpability for those events, dismissing them as unproven allegations.

Hmmmm.... a struggling professional makes a poor decision that he later comes to regret.  I think we would all be inclined towards forgiveness if we sensed genuine regret.  However, by all accounts Singh tends more towards bitterness and defiance.

For the true underlying facts of the 1985 incident I'll defer to John Garrity, former Sports Illustrated writer and longstanding advocate of Ashkernish (he pretty much found it and dubbed it Ashkernish Old) and Carne Golf Links in Belmullet, County Mayo, as well as proprietor of the tongue-in-cheek Top 50 golf course ranking website (the tongue is so deep into his cheek that John ranks the new driving range at Augusta National as the 47th best golf course in the world, and I've counted 1,472 course as ranked No. 51).  In any event, John looked into these old allegations for a Sports Illustrated piece shortly after Vijay's Masters win.  His nut graphs follow:

I know these things to be true because I checked them out for a 1996 feature story on Singh. I went to his homeland of Fiji and interviewed the club members who watched him learn the game on the watergrass fairways of the Nadi Airport Golf Club. I talked to golf officials in Australia and Southeast Asia. I interviewed the Indonesian Golf Association official who ruled that Singh had improved his score in Jakarta by a stroke—just enough to make the cut—before signing his card. I reviewed the incident with Asian tour players of the time, including the Canadian pro who played with Singh that day. "It was not a misunderstanding," said an American player who was there. "All of us who were around are very upset that Vijay denies this."

On the other hand almost everyone I talked to pointed out that it was another time, another place-almost another Vijay. Singh was 22 when he got caught in Jakarta. He was cocky, immature and steeped in a culture of gamesmanship. Three years later, when he won tournaments in Nigeria and Sweden and qualified to play on the European tour, he was a quite different fellow, serious, disciplined, remote and honest. Singh has played hundreds of tournaments since taking his punishment, and his record is unblemished. Asked if he can recall a single instance in which Singh was accused or even suspected of stretching the rules, veteran PGA Tour rules official Wade Cagle says, "Not in any way, shape or form. He's been a perfect gentleman."

So that covers both the yin and the yang of the event.  Yes it was a different Singh, one fighting for his professional life that took some liberties with his scorecard.  As we all know, it's a game of honor, and in that moment we can't conclude other than that his honor was found lacking. 

Now fast forward to early 2013, when the Big Fijian discloses in a Sports Illustrated interview that he's used deer-antler spray as part of his fitness and health regimen.  Deer-antler spray was at the time on the World Anti-Doping Agency's ("WADA") list of banned substances, upon which the PGA Tour relies.  Deer-antler spray became notorious through its use by Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis, who seemed to recover more quickly than expected from a serious injury in leading the Ravens to a Super Bowl victory.  Not to go too deep into the long grass, but the spray is reputed to include a growth hormone banned by the NFL, though it's unclear whether the hormone could be absorbed through a spray as opposed to injection.

The Tour has depended upon WADA for its list of banned substances, and logically began an investigation into Singh after his admission to Sports Illustrated, including, from published reports, placing his tournament winnings into escrow during its investigation.  When WADA removed deer-antler spray from its no-no list, the Tour ended its investigation and one would have expected that to be the end of the matter.

But the Prickly Fijian decided to poke the sleeping dogs, filing suit against the Tour for "public humiliation and ridicule"during its investigation.  And lest he risk retaining any friends in Ponte Vedra Beach, where the tour is headquartered and which is also his home, Veej filed the suit on the Wednesday of the Players' Championship, the Tour's signature event  (a/k/a The Fifth of Four Majors™.).

Why would a sensible man do this and keep an admittedly embarrassing episode (really Veej?  Deer-antler spray?) and why is it of interest?   As to the former, one can only note the linkage to the 1985 incident, but surely this will not end well for the plaintiff.  But as to the latter, the Tour's drug testing policy appears to be designed to create the appearance of vigilance, without the messiness of imposing actual penalties.  Since its inception in mid-2008, only one player has been penalized under its testing procedures. Not only is Doug Barron not exactly a household name, but the suspension arose in highly controversial circumstances where the Barron had previously notified the Tour of his medications and was subsequently granted a therapeutic exemption. 

The unlucky Doug Barron

And this ties in with another of my longstanding critiques, that the Tour's disciplinary actions are completely opaque.  We have no idea what Tour players have been fined or suspended for what offenses, because Tim Finchem wants to keep it in the family (or should it be Family?).  To the best of my knowledge, there is no other professional sports organization that takes that position.  I'm not a Tim Finchem fan for a number of reasons (keep reading this blog for more), but this is high on the charging docket.

Commissioner Ratched

Not only do I consider this policy to be outrageous, but I also think it short-sighted and self-defeating.  By way of explanation, we've often heard that Tiger Woods is the most penalized man in golf, due to his "earthy" language and on-course demeanor when the ball doesn't behave.  Now we all understand that the fines can't be large enough to matter to a man of Tiger's means, but perhaps public shame would have some effect on him.  None of us can know, but a professional golf tournament is a public event, so on what basis is disciplinary action resulting  therefrom a "private matter?"  Just askin'...

To circle back and try to wrap up this lengthy rant, no less an expert than John Daly has advised Singh that his suit is ill advised.  And for once Long John should be heeded, as he once made the mistake of pursuing a libel suit against a reporter for the Florida Times-Union, which in defending itself gained access to and disclosed the contents of Daly's 456 page PGA Tour disciplinary file, the highlights of which included five suspensions and twenty-one citations for failure to give full effort, i.e., dogging it.





So the first question I'd ask Vijay is whether he's certain he knows what's in his Tour file.  But on the larger issue, I believe that any sunlight this lawsuit casts on the PGA Tour's practices related to drug enforcement and other disciplinary actions is to be welcomed.  And, à la John Daly, it might prove to be entertaining as well.