One night in a smoky sports bar, some friends and I decided that anything you could do while eating a hot dog or smoking wasn’t a sport.
Sports are about athleticism, coordination and health - none of which are promoted by chewing or smoking tobacco, which leads to serious diseases like black spots all over your skin - and nuisances like making your non-smoking buddy wait outside a restaurant with you as you huff down a pack before heading inside.
It should not be allowed on any professional athletic surface.
I’m not talking about your weekend round, of course. If we banned smoking and drinking on every golf course - our sport would be about as relevant in America as cricket.
Baseball players chewing and dipping, golfers like U.S. Open champ Angel Cabrera are a much different issue, however. Tobacco is a drug, just like steroids and can be used as an advantage. It is a stimulant and has altering physical and mental effects.
That’s not really the main problem though. There are kids in the gallery or the bleachers, watching heroes glamorize the stuff like it’s Cary Grant lighting a Camel - or Paris Hilton getting breast implants. Cabrera was asked several questions about his addiction in his Sunday press conference and his answers were all met with light-hearted laughter from the media. His smoking is looked at as part of his character: a mysterious, jovial Argentinian who is free-spirited enough to smoke whenever he pleases, even leading the U.S. Open on Sunday. It sends a dangerous message.
If an athlete wants to drink, smoke, ride motorcycles or shoot up strip clubs on their own time, I really don’t care all that much. If they want to suck down a few cigarettes in the clubhouse before teeing off or during breaks out of the public eye (plenty of hockey players dip at intermission), by all means.
But when the international spotlight is on them for their talents, I don’t want impressionable kids believing they got there as a result of the K-bear or Philip Morris.
I’d prefer to see commissioners Tim Finchem and Bud Selig tackle tobacco use before steroids. You can’t walk into any drug store and buy BALCO products but tobacco is a threat to any star-struck young athlete if it is commonplace on the playing field.
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For a guy who has traveled the world a bit, you should know that smoking is an honored part of many countries' daily diets. It does not make it healthy, but you cannot say that it is morally or ethically correct or incorrect.
If the US PGA Tour wishes to insulate itself from world players, then it should follow your advice. If it wishes to welcome them, it must accept them for all their foibles.
Smoke in my body disgusts me, but there is something about a smoke-filled bar, a waft of second-hand, that seems cool to me. Can't defend it, just like it.
Golf only allows one player to work at a time, the balance of their time is their time and how they spend it is up to the player.
If smoking bothers the audience, they can leave to watch another player elsewhere on the course.
Role models are created by the people who need them, the individual role model is doing his job, if you don't see him as your role model, there are other players for you to choose.
The fact that a player of a sport is not your idea of a proper role model does not diminish his skill.
How many other players are popping pills during their break or taking insulin?
By the way, what does Cabrera do with the butts, toss them on the greens?
Steroids are illegal. Cigarettes are not. Let's not lose sight of the big picture.
Just as long as they don't throw the filter on the course, I am okay with it.
Sponsors are not going to want to be associated with anything negative. There are many, many other choices they have as far as places to advertise. If drugs and smoking and dipping are portrayed as being cool on TV, these sponsors are going to move on to where they are not associated with the fall out of these issues. No Sponsors, no GOLF...so not liking it if a player smokes and moving on to watch player who is not smoking is an option, but more overly, enough fans will get fed up with it and leave golf all together, which is not what the sponsors want either...so controlling the smoke is of benefit to golf and the business of golf. Being a smoker for 15 years and now a non-smoker for 27 years I think I can speak for all non-smokers in saying it is worth quitting while you can.
If the players are not going to watch out for their health someone needs to.
1. All of what players on disability?
2. What fans are leaving b/c Daly flips a butt or two? Not many from what I can tell.
3. What the hell happened to free will?
As a former Marine, I fought for individual rights. Last time I checked, this isn't a police state. We have the right to abuse our body in any manner in which we choose. Some drink. Some smoke. Steroids have been deemed illegal by our society, so they are outlawed by sport. If you feel that strongly, get cigarettes outlawed, then we'll talk.
What's next...drinking?
Screw the "business" of golf. That's exactly what is wrong with this damn game. That's why we have a 16 year old femal who shouldn't be on tour competing for exemptions on the PGA tour. The business of golf? Give it a rest. Go play the game, and get your head out of your abacus.