Absurd, unfair treatment meted out to him, says Singh.
AB Wire
Three-time major winner Vijay Singh filed a memorandum with the New York State Supreme Court on Tuesday, accusing PGA Tour officials of subjecting him to “absurd” and “unfair” treatment by ignoring the use of deer antler spray by five other professional golfers and then lying to the public by “characterizing Singh as a cheater who caught a break.”
According to Singh, discovery revealed that five golfers, identified anonymously as Golfers A, B, C, D and E, admitted to the Tour as early as 2010 or 2011 that they had used the same spray as Singh but were not sanctioned under the Tour’s anti-doping program, reported Golf.com.
In 2013, The Tour announced its intention to suspend Singh for 90 days following his admission to Sports Illustrated that he had used the spray, which contained trace amounts of the banned growth hormone IGF-1, but quickly lifted its suspension when the World Anti-Doping Agency determined the product didn’t contain enough of the hormone to be performance-enhancing. Singh sued the Tour, contending that the announcement damaged his reputation, leading to the loss of his longtime endorsement deal with Cleveland Golf.
Singh’s lawyer, Peter Ginsberg, claimed that the Tour’s legal strategy attempts to rewrite their rules to cover their own tracks.
“Knowing it needed to rationalize this obvious disparate treatment of Singh, the Tour during the course of this litigation attempted to justify its arbitrary treatment of Singh by claiming that other golfers who had used the SWATS products played on the Champions Tour and the the Program does not apply to Champions Tour golfers,” Ginsberg wrote in the memorandum.
While the Tour contends that its officials merely followed evolving WADA guidelines, Singh accused Commissioner Tim Finchem of lying when he pinned the Tour’s decision to withdraw its anti-doping case against him on a change in WADA policy that “clarified that it no longer considers the use of deer antler spray to be prohibited unless a positive test results,” Golf.com reported.
Singh contends WADA did no such thing, citing testimony from WADA’s science director that WADA’s position on deer antler spray hadn’t changed in several years.