Drug testing on PGA Tour might be in place in 2008

A drug-testing program by the PGA Tour remains on track, according to Commissioner Tim Finchem, and may be in place sometime next year.

“We are in hopes of completing work this calendar year,” Finchem said Thursday in a brief interview at the Deutsche Bank Championship in Norton, Mass. “We’re in hopes of executing on the elements of the policy by ‘08, or certainly during ’08. It’s a complex thing.”

Golfweek reported Finchem had told members of the Player Advisory Council that drug testing would begin in 2008.

“It could,” Finchem said Thursday. “We’re well down the road, done a lot of work on testing, protocols, but it’s premature for me to talk about specifics at this point.”

Finchem indicated that some elements of an anti-doping plan, such as a list of therapeutic exceptions and the establishment of a disciplinary process, would have to be in place before testing begins.