A judge has turned down Doug Barron's application to lift the 12-month ban served on him by the PGA Tour for a doping violation.
Journeyman fails to get ban lifted after failing drugs test
A federal judge has turned down US golfer Doug Barron's urgent application to lift the 12-month ban served on him by the PGA Tour for a doping violation.
This, said the judge, was because it would be unfair on the other golfers competing for 2010 Tour cards at this week's annual Qualifying School.
Barron, a 40-year-old journeyman on the US PGA and Nationwide Tours, gained unwanted fame earlier this month when he became the first professional golfer ever to be banned in the US for using performance-enhancing drugs.
The PGA Tour suspended Barron for a year, but reveal the drug that he was found to have taken.
Last week Barron, who turned professional in 1992 and had played eight full seasons on the PGA Tour, most recently in 2006, had filed a lawsuit against the Tour calling for the ban to overturned because, he claimed, it was unfair based on the fact that the 'banned' drugs he was accused of using were in fact legally-prescribed drugs he had been taking for two separate disabilities.
But Judge Tu M. Pham of the US District Court in Memphis, Tennessee, denied Barron's request for a temporary injunction and said to permit the golfer to take part in the PGA Tour's annual Q-School program this week might unfairly knock out other players seeking to qualify for next year's Tour.
"If Barron does not prevail at the trial (Qualifying school), these other players... would have been denied the chance to compete in PGA Tour events in 2010," the judge said in his ruling.
He added that allowing Barron to play "could raise substantial public policy concerns regarding the enforcement of anti-doping policies in professional sports."
PGA Tour officials 'were pleased with the decision' but refrained from making any further comment in a brief statement issued after the court case.
Meanwhile, Barron's attorney Jeffrey Rosenblum, described the Judge's decision as "a huge blow", but said the case was not over.
