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ADT CHAMPIONSHIPNovember 14, 2007Jill PilgrimWEST PALM BEACH, FLORIDA CONNIE WILSON: Many of you received today or in your email a LPGA drug testing protocol. We just completed that yesterday, distributed it to the membership, and have Jill Pilgrim here, who is the LPGA's general counsel and has been our lead in the establishment of our program with a team of folks within the office, but I'll have Jill start everything off. JILL PILGRIM: I wanted to have up on the podium as many of the people on the staff of the LPGA as possible who have been involved in developing this program. It could not have been done by myself alone, and we have Debbie Ridgeway from our finance and administration department; Jane Geddes, who is head of our rules officials tournament operations; and Connie, obviously, who you all know from the media. Mindy Moore was not able to be here for the duration of this Q & A. She also has been an instrumental part of this drug testing program through the LPGA. So I'm just going to make some very brief overview statements and then I know you've all been staying up late last night reading through this and getting your questions together, so this is really about you and the questions that you have and the extent to which we can make this clearer for you in the understanding of how this program is going to operate. The most important thing to appreciate and understand about the endeavor of engaging in drug testing for the sport of golf, particularly for the LPGA, is that this is all about competitive equity. When we embarked on this process of planning in January, I sat down with our group and I said, we really need a set of guiding philosophies. I knew the sport of golf and had been very involved in Olympic drug testing. I'm very clear on what the Olympic ideals are, but I needed you all to tell me what are the ideals and philosophy that would apply to an LPGA drug testing program. First and foremost, it has to be about competitive equity. Everything flows from competitive equity in any kind of athletic endeavor where individuals or teams are competing against each other. Of course, the program in itself has a goal of both deterring performance-enhancing drug use and catching those who might be already abusing drugs or medications for performance-enhancing effect. We also wanted a program that was easy to administer from the perspective of making sure that every player who unfortunately tested positive under the program would be treated the same. So my experience in many, many years of drug testing under the Olympic movement, we used a strict liability standard for responsibility of the player for what is in their system, and we applied that system to our program. Confidentiality is also an extremely important part of any kind of drug testing program because unless it is firmly and legally established that a doping offense has been committed, it serves no purpose to have leaks of names and suspicions of things that may or may not be the case. So confidentiality throughout the whole process until at the end there's a determination that someone has, in fact, committed a doping offense, is a principle and a philosophy of our drug-testing program. Initially we will be conducting only in-competition drug testing. What in-competition drug testing means in the context of sport drug testing is you take the player or the athlete immediately after they leave the field of play and you drug test them as close to the time that they competed as possible. Then we have this terminology we use in drug testing circles called "results management." That's after you get the test results back from the laboratory, what do you do now? Well, if a player tests clean, there's really nothing to do. They're good to go and you confirm that women's professional golf is indeed a clean sport. If unfortunately we have a player that does test positive, there are a series of steps that have been outlined in the protocol that you have that will go into effect, and they have to be executed very efficiently so that it's fair to everybody and the player, ultimately if they're found guilty, that that would stand up to fair due process standards. Because of that, we're using independent decision-makers at every process, at every step of the results management process. We have retained and engaged independent medical professionals, independent arbitrators and lawyers who will handle the process. Ultimately the most -- and to wrap up the philosophies aspect of this, we decided that it was extremely important as a companion to competitive equity that when we had to make tough decisions in the course of designing this program that we made those decisions consistent with our obligations as the association for all the players, that we made those decisions consistent with what is in the best interest of the collective body of players as opposed to what might be in the interest of any particular individual player. So you have before you the 2008 LPGA drug testing program protocol, and to the extent that you have any questions about it, I know there was a gentlemen at the last session who wanted to know who the administrator is. My name is Jill Pilgrim (laughter). Also, the administration of the program in-house is through the office of the general counsel, the legal department, my assistant counsel Josh Kane is also assisting in the administration. So we are the two individuals who are administering the program. Q. Do you envision a time where you test winners every week as typically the case of the USATF, and if so, or if not so, how long is it going to take to get results back because there's stipulations about vacating titles and giving them to the runner-ups? JILL PILGRIM: No, we will not always test winners. At track and field we did not always test winners. It depended on what the event was. In national championships that were team selection events, we tested very deep because of national teams. But most drug testing is done, and we will do it, by random selection at tournaments. We do reserve the right to do target testing if we so choose, but a truly efficient and effective program I think has to do it randomly, the theory being with my experience in the Olympic drug movement is if someone knows that the top three are always going to be tested, then if they're doping and they're planning their cycles of drugs, they just make sure they don't land in the top three at the wrong point, that they can cycle for a major and test the waters. Now, when you're doing totally random they can be tested at any time, so they're going to be deterred from doing that. Not that anybody is, in fact, doing it, but if they were inclined to. Q. And the turnaround time? JILL PILGRIM: The turn around time, we are in contract negotiations right now with the laboratory, but we are insisting on seven to ten days with the emphasis on the seven. We really want a quick turnaround. Q. A couple quick questions. When exactly does this start? Does this start at the World Cup? JILL PILGRIM: The actual testing of events can begin in January 2008. We're not revealing the tournaments at which we're going to test, so we're not going to actually start administering drug tests until 2008. So at any tournament on the schedule in 2008 we could drug test. Q. But it starts next year, first event? JILL PILGRIM: It does, except for there's some aspects of that that have already started, like the application for medical waivers. Players are being encouraged to apply for those now because if we're testing January 1 or 2 you want to have that behind you before you start to compete as a player. Q. And when you said -- will you randomly test at every tournament or will it be randomly tournaments that you randomly test? JILL PILGRIM: We're not going to randomly select the tournaments at which we're going to test, but we're randomly selecting the players we will be testing. So we're going to have very deliberate in the selection of which tournaments we're going to test over the course of the season, but again, from the deterrence and catching cheaters perspective, we don't want to announce in advance which tournaments those will be. Q. My final question, the panel of three arbitrators, can you tell us who those are? JILL PILGRIM: In terms of they will be lawyers. I can't tell you who they are yet. We actually haven't -- we're working with the American Arbitration Association to recruit the lawyers who are going to be our arbitrators. But we certainly -- under no circumstances will those arbitrators be able to talk to the media. All their work is going to be confidential. Q. I was just reading where it says you have to turn in your medical waiver application 45 days in advance, and you can be penalized even if it's ultimately waived and granted. What happens if a player gets sick in the middle of a season? Would your suggestion be to -- if they're unsure about whatever it is that maybe they're prescribed, to not take anything or to not participate in an event until they get -- JILL PILGRIM: That's a common question that we get. Not every illness requires the administration of a substance that's prohibited under the prohibited substance list. A player would have to make an assessment based on the level of threat to their health and the seriousness of their illness what the best course of action is. It is the case that the player, if they were to get sick and were to forget to have a conversation with their doctor when their doctor was prescribing medications about the prohibited substance list and to make sure that the doctor prescribes something that was not on the prohibited substance list, they would be basically playing a Russian roulette with their career if they went into competition without a medical waiver. We're not saying that they can't apply for a medical waiver within 20 days of a tournament, but the 45-day time limit is to suggest to a player that if you want to play 45 days from now, we need that amount of time to administer the process. So it's -- they can apply five days before a tournament, but we're not going to be able to go through the complete process of evaluating that in a five-day period. So we're giving them a suggestion that if they really want to be sure that their situation is taken care of that they really need to get it in as soon as possible. Q. How much did this cost? JILL PILGRIM: Which aspect of it? Q. The whole program, the implementation of the program. JILL PILGRIM: Well, we're still putting the numbers together. Debbie, do you have any closer number? DEBBIE RIDGEWAY: No, really at this time we're still in negotiations, like Jill said, so I would not want to give a final number at this point. Q. Ballpark? DEBBIE RIDGEWAY: No. Q. If someone were caught or had a positive test, and you disclosed it to the media, would you say that once a player tested positive for a performance enhancing drug or would you be specific which drug they tested positive for? JILL PILGRIM: Our intention at the end of the full process is not to keep the media in the dark. We will give you the essential and critical information, which will essentially be the name of the player, the tournament at which they tested positive, and the substance for which they tested positive and the duration of their penalty as a consequence of that. Q. The actual substance? JILL PILGRIM: We'll provide the substance. Q. Could you give us a little insight into how you arrived at the prohibited substance list and the differences between it and the modern list? JILL PILGRIM: Absolutely. I turned to medical and scientific experts. We started with the WADA Code. There's a general understanding in the sport drug testing world that WADA, the World Anti-Doping Agency, that manages drug testing for the Olympic movement, is the gold standard in drug testing. So we didn't sit here and try to reinvent the wheel. We started with the WADA Code list, and working with the National Center For Drug-Free Sport, who was a consultant to us in the developmental stages of this, we went through with their medical doctors and scientists and talked about the substances and the categories. And then my colleagues here talked to me about what was unique about golf as opposed to other sports, and I think it's fair to say that not every substance that will be performance enhancing in track and field is going to be performance enhancing in golf, and I've learned a lot about that over the last ten months in terms of my appreciation and understanding of the sport of golf. That's one of the reasons that we have not required, like the Olympic movement does, a medical waiver for beta-2 agonists and some allergy medications, because golf is played on a course around trees and grass and that sort of thing, and if a player needs to take an inhaled steroid to unrestrict their airways, I don't see that as performance-enhancing. Even if they are doing it because they think it'll be performance-enhancing, they still have to hit the ball, they still have to know the conditions of the course, they still have to get the ball in the hole. So we tried to, in working from the starting point of the WADA Code, assume that everything would apply, and we methodically went through and had a discussion about a few things that we didn't adopt because we wanted to make sure that the program was sensibly tailored to the sport of professional women's golf. Q. I've got a couple for you. Let's say we're at this point next year in the season and someone tests positive on Sunday, June 1st. Well, they take the test on Sunday, and you've got your seven to ten days. It runs through the appeals process, this person is deemed to have violated the rules from say June 1st. How long is it going to take before the hammer of God is dropped down upon this person? JILL PILGRIM: I have an easy answer to that. I have no idea. The reason I don't have any idea is because there are a number of steps, as you see, that need to occur within time frames, and I couldn't tell you for each case what the time frame would be. For instance, if the player -- in the protocol it talks about the confirmation of tests. If you tested a player on Sunday, and in your example they test positive, that would be an A sample positive, but the B didn't test positive, that would be the end of it, no more. But there's also an issue of how soon after the player is notified of the A test positive that they schedule the B. If they schedule it right away within three or four days, then the process is going to go a lot quicker. If it takes 30 days, and that's why we put a 30-day limit on it, because the player can play in that time period, because the B hasn't confirmed the A test. So we'll allow them to play but not to keep playing, not to string out the B sample testing so that they can play and play and play. Really a lot depends on every step where there's a time frame involved, whether it takes longer or whether it pushes up against the end of that time frame. Q. I'm just a little confused. Let's say player A wins a tournament in January. Then don't test her until six months later, she fails the test. Does she vacate the title that she won in January? JILL PILGRIM: Not at all. She wasn't tested in January so we wouldn't have the basis for punishing her if we didn't collect a sample from her. Q. Just to clarify, will testing take place after a round, or can you do it beforehand? JILL PILGRIM: It would always be after the player leaves the course for the day ultimately. We wouldn't be testing in the middle of rounds. But it could be at the end of like Thursday or Friday or Saturday competition or a Sunday competition. Q. What would be the difference between testing after the first round on Thursday than after the Pro-Am round on Wednesday? JILL PILGRIM: Well, we're not going to test after Pro-Ams because that wouldn't be in competition because the competition hasn't started yet. The competition starts when the competitors in the tournament event tee off for the first time. Q. This might be maybe a question for Carolyn, but I'm just curious if anyone has any expectations of this first year? JILL PILGRIM: I routinely and continuously have heard since I've been involved in this endeavor that golfers are clean and that there is no performance-enhancing drug use problem in golf as there are in other sports. You know, we are not even -- we can't even imagine what the results would be. My expectation is that we're going to have very few positive tests and maybe some of them will be inadvertent types of things. But we're really not going to know until we see. But my expectation personally is I don't expect there to be more tests or even on a par with what I've seen say in track and field because there is no -- in my experience and from what I'm hearing from the Golf World, there is not that sort of committed core of drug-using people around golf. Let's hope for the best, and I'm expecting the best. Q. Several people have asked me with the women involved, is there more of a concern that women could get an advantage to golf through performance enhancing on the same level that men can? I don't know if you understand what I'm asking there. JILL PILGRIM: So your question is do we think women can benefit more than men? Q. Obviously the body makeups are different, but is it less of a concern for women with the performance enhancing, or is it the same level as men? JILL PILGRIM: I can't say that I've studied that and I'm not a scientist or a medical doctor, but I can say that I've read an article on the effects of prohibited substances on women, and it's not pretty. Any woman who would be considering using prohibited substance to enhance their performance I would encourage to read this article of all the potential side effects, including early death from the use of steroids. There has been speculation in the press about certain wrestlers who have had various scenarios happen to them, and there's been speculation over time. Actually the first reported death in doping was in cycling in the '60s, a blood doping incident, because if you do it right it works great, but if you do it wrong, you kill yourself. I'm not sure in terms of medical and scientific comparison between men and women, but I can assure you that it's not good for the health of the women and for their reproductive lives and those types of issues. Q. If there were, ballpark, 130 fully exempt players for '08, how many will be tested by the end of the year? DEBBIE RIDGEWAY: Right now we really don't know. We're working with a statistician to look at that because really everyone is eligible, so we're working right now to determine what the sample will be. Q. Under what circumstances would target testing take place? JILL PILGRIM: Well, let's see. We've talked about -- my experience in track and field, we had a tip hotline, where if anyone had credible information about potential drug use that we would receive that information and we'd pass that information on to the drug testing agency, and I'll tell you that some athletes were ultimately found guilty of doping months and months later because of target testing. So using that as a model, the circumstances in which we might drug test are if we receive repeated and credible information that there was a suspicion that a particular player was abusing performance-enhancing drugs. Also in the scenario that this gentleman mentioned where in June a player tested positive on Sunday, if there was a tournament that following week and we were planning to test that tournament, we would probably test that player if that player was not selected for random testing because we would want to make sure that competitions in between the A and the B test that the player was clean. Otherwise if we didn't test that player and they tested positive for that event in June and then they played in another event towards the end of June and we didn't test them, and later the June test -- the earlier June test was found positive, we would adjudicate that, but we wouldn't have a basis for adjudicating the later June test unless we tested, so that might be a circumstance in which we target tested. Q. So if basically player B is two shots behind player A going into the last round, player B can't pick up the phone and say I think she's doping? JILL PILGRIM: We're talking about credible tips. We are very aware that there might be competitive motives for people calling in. We're not going to act on those. We might, amongst ourselves, observe certain changes in behavior and body composition of a player that make us think, you know what, maybe we should test that player. So it could be any number of scenarios. It could also be, for instance, that we have -- I know in the Olympic world whenever we were sending teams to compete, national teams, we would test the whole team. I always think that that's a good idea if you're going to have some kind of scenario where a team is going out to represent the United States. It certainly avoids all kinds of international embarrassment if you make sure that the team that you're sending is clean. Q. We were talking about the circumstances in which a player might be docked her title. If you don't test winners every week -- say somebody won a title at the end of June, wasn't tested, and then was tested a month later. How far back will you go to wipe out someone's performance and earnings? How is that going to work? I'm a little unclear as to the recency and how far-reaching that would be. JILL PILGRIM: We are not going to go back and take away titles if a player wasn't tested, except to the extent of implementing the Hall of Fame scenario. Do you want to explain that little bit? JANE GEDDES: Tournaments that players play in when they don't receive points or they don't receive money, they would also not receive credit for those and therefore not credit towards the Hall of Fame. Connie, you can also maybe answer that maybe a little bit clearer. CONNIE WILSON: As you know, with our criteria, you have to have ten years' membership in good standing to be eligible for the Hall of Fame. If in a year a player is found to be guilty of a doping offense, that year will no longer count in their Hall of Fame criteria. I will have Jill probably come up and explain, but the time that a player has a positive A sample to the period that she's permitted to play, if in that window of time she is tested in that time, and if in that time she's tested positive, that anything that happens within those windows of time -- it is a very short window, and if you read the protocol, which I know is long, hopefully we've detailed it a little bit more kind of in a step-by-step that might explain that, but it also might bring up a point of provisional suspension. That might be helpful to understand that, as well, but one of the key pieces of this as Jill had mentioned is not to allow this to extend for months and months and months and enable a player who has had a positive A to go and play for months and months and months because of the ramifications it has on everybody else. JILL PILGRIM: In fact, in our philosophies, when I talked about our balancing the interests of the collective body of players against the individuals, that is really where it came into play. Connie raises a good point. I would like to focus you on the fact that the provisional suspension, after we get the B sample test results and the player has been allowed to play between receiving the A sample test results and the B sample test results. At the moment where the B sample analysis confirms that a doping offense may have been committed, that player is going to receive a provisional suspension from the LPGA, and she can no longer play any more tournaments. She can no longer play any more tournaments. So that player is not going to be in the mix winning tournaments and pushing out, getting World Ranking points and affecting the competitive opportunities and advancement of her fellow competitors because she's no longer going to be -- her focus is going to need to be on defending the allegation that she committed a doping offense, and she won't be in the mix with the other players. Q. So if a player is found guilty of a doping offense, does the year start from the tournament -- not when the decision is made but the tournament? JILL PILGRIM: In terms of Hall of Fame consequences or penalty? Q. The one-year penalty. JILL PILGRIM: The penalty starts whenever the decision is made, but what we will to is -- for instance, if the player tested positive on June 1, and on January 15th we got the A sample test back as positive, and then on June 30th the B sample test came back as positive, the player would be suspended from essentially July 1 until the end of the whole adjudication process. And then if in July, August, September, say it takes three months to get through the adjudication process and the arbitrators find the player guilty and give the player a one-year suspension, then what would happen is the year would start on the date of the arbitration decision, and then the arbitrator would say, but we're going to give you credit for those three months that you were provisionally suspended. So in fact, the player would, in fact, serve a year suspension from the date of the provisional suspension in September, at the end of September, and they would have nine more months of their suspension to serve to make it a one-year suspension. So it's not a calendar year. It's wherever it happens to fall in terms of decision-making. Q. So then say it happens in September. Are you suspended until the next September? JILL PILGRIM: Yes. Q. My second question is when you come back after your year suspension, are you back in the random testing pool? JILL PILGRIM: Yes. Q. So you're not going to be specifically tested? JILL PILGRIM: Yes, there's a protocol that talks about before you come back to competition if you're serving a doping suspension. You have to make yourself available for target testing essentially. We will test you -- we don't want someone to -- this is something, again, in the Olympic movement that we came to with experience, that if you suspend them for the year they have a year that they can dope and then come back all juiced up. When we get to the part of our out of competition testing program, that will help us with that. But under our current protocol the player has to make themselves available prior to coming back to the Tour to be drug tested. So we're going to test them before they end their year of suspension or their two years of suspension ends to make sure that they're clean before they come back on to the Tour. Q. I'd like Jane to speak to the membership status of an individual who has been suspended for a year or two, just what impact that would have on a player's membership status? JANE GEDDES: Aside from the Hall of Fame that Jill gave on if a player is suspended on July 1st and then retains their playing privileges back following the year on July 1st, it would be as if that player did not play, or played in every event in that year's time but missed the cut. In other words, they would come back on July 1st the following year with status, not the exact status that they left with, but status that would be as if they played and missed every cut. So if a player had status that they had wins or they were exempt for say two years, they would lose a year of that exemption because it would be as if they were playing but not receiving any credit for it. And also if a player were fighting for their status when they received the suspension, they would be out of luck by the time they came back the next year because at that point they would not have any status. If that happened to fall in between the time of qualifying school, again they would be out of luck, they would have to go through qualifying school the next year? CONNIE WILSON: The key thing with that is after the one- or two-year suspensions they would be permitted to go back to Q-school but the third is a lifetime. So I just want to clarify, if there was a one-year or two-year suspension, they would be permitted to come back to Q-school if needed, but they would not be able to if there was a third. Q. Understanding that you're not going to test at every event, do you have a ballpark as to the number of events that you're going to test? JILL PILGRIM: We do, but I cannot tell you that. Q. And then secondly, going back to this example, if a player is given a provisional suspension on July 1, goes through the arbitration, is found -- it ultimately deemed guilty and must serve a year's suspension, in terms of Hall of Fame status, because you're missing two years, would you wind up losing two years of eligibility for Hall of Fame? JILL PILGRIM: No, the way the protocol is written, you lose the year that the drug test occurred in. So that second half year, if it straddled two years, you'd be competing that part of that year. So you would have been competing in that year. Q. I'm still a little bewildered by the circumstances in which a player could lose a title. Can you clarify that? JILL PILGRIM: The only circumstance that a player could lose a title is if they were drug tested randomly during that tournament, any day of that tournament, and ultimately both the A and the B sample tested positive and they went through an adjudication process and they were found ultimately guilty, then they would lose that title. Q. It would have to be a test taken that week, and the vacated title would apply only to that win? JILL PILGRIM: Exactly. We're not going back retroactively on the theory, and we talked this through and we thought -- and the players -- I should add, we have a player subcommittee that was involved in helping us write these rules and reviewing them and going through scenarios with us, as well as the executive committee of the LPGA which consists of players. So we listened to what they had to say. As a lawyer I didn't have any good argument for why are you going to take away a title from somebody or prize money if you didn't test them on that day because you're going back retroactively. If we had tested them, they could have tested clean that day and we would have been able to take it away. I think from the perspective of fairness -- and one of the things we've tried very hard to do in preparing and drafting these rules is to make them balanced, because at the end of the day, these rules, this program is for the collective benefit of the players. We want those folks who are cheating, whoever they are, wherever they exist, not because they don't know which tournaments we're going to test and they don't know whether their name is going to come up, let them stay home. If they roll the dice then we're going to catch them. That's the plan, that's the goal. Q. Hopefully the last hypothetical. Player is tested on June 1 and wins said tournament. On June 8th player is not tested, wins again. On June 15th you get the results back, positive, runs the course. Forfeit the title won on June 1. What about the tournament that she won in which she was not tested? JILL PILGRIM: As I said before, if we didn't test her on June 8th and she started a new tournament on June 8th or 9th or 10th, if we didn't test her for that week, then we can't take her title away. Q. It would make sense to think that if somebody tests positive you're going to probably keep testing them as long as they keep playing to make sure -- JILL PILGRIM: That's a thought we've had. Q. I always thought an A sample and B sample were both taken at the same time and they were just put in different petri dishes or whatever. Are the B samples actually taken subsequent? JILL PILGRIM: You're right. You're absolutely correct. Q. So they are taken the same -- JILL PILGRIM: They are taken the same time. It's the same source urine, it's just poured into two different containers. The reason for the B sample test is to protect players from shoddy lab work and to make sure that -- with the B sample test, the player has an opportunity to be present at the lab for the opening of the B sample or to send a representative, so that's the whole concept of the B test is that's the player's opportunity to see what happens in the lab and to -- this is how I was involved with drug testing, where the player goes to observe the B sample and they have their copy of the form that they signed when they were drug tested that has their sample number on it, and they go to search the B sample being tested and the number on the bottle is not the same number that's on their sample. Well, good thing that they showed up to find that out because otherwise they might be charged with a doping offense that's not based on their urine. So the whole concept of the B sample is the player's opportunity to either go themselves or send a representative to observe the laboratory analysis of that same urine to make sure that it confirms the test that was given. I will tell you that 99.9 percent of the time the A confirms the B. I mean, there would be real lab error or some crazy thing that happened, sample degradation or something, but very rarely does the B sample not confirm the A. Q. You just used 99.9. Is that like a real statistic? JILL PILGRIM: I wouldn't quote me on that, but in terms of -- I don't have that. I can tell you in my experience with track and field, there were times when the B did not confirm the A, so that does happen. But those times were very few. I would have to give Debbie the numbers to see if my 99.9 was correct. But I mean, thousands and thousands and thousands of tests that I was involved with, and maybe six of them had the B not confirm the A. But it's a very, very small number. 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