Tiger Woods has long been linked to performance-enhancing drug use, though there has been no evidence to support the accusations against him. The main reason Tiger has been linked to steroids is that he has received treatments from Canadian doctor Anthony Galea — the same doctor who treated Alex Rodriguez and once admitted to smuggling human growth hormone into the United States.
In the new book “Blood Sport: Alex Rodriguez, Biogenesis and the Quest to End Baseball’s Steroid Era,” authors Tim Elfrink and Gus-Garcia Roberts claim Galea visited Woods a total of 14 times between January and August 2009 and that Woods paid him $76,012 during that span. Tiger was recovering from knee surgery after the 2008 US Open at the time.
While GOLF.com reminds us that Galea has admitted to treating professional athletes with HGH, Galea and Woods have both stated in the past that Tiger received only legal treatments involving platelet-rich plasma therapy.
In addition to being treated by Galea, the book also cited records from the Florida Health Department that show Woods visited with Dr. Mark Lindsay a total of 49 times between September 2008 and October 2009. Tiger reportedly paid Lindsay $118,979. Lindsay is an associate of Galea who also treated A-Rod.
Tiger’s former swing coach Hank Haney told the Golf Channel in 2010 that he watched Galea treat Woods and it was all perfectly normal stuff.
“I was there and watched the whole procedure,” Haney said. “There was never anything that went into Tiger Woods’s body that didn’t come out of his body. They take blood out, they spin it, they inject the plasma back in. I totally believe that Tiger Woods has never taken any performance-enhancing drugs.”
While it’s quite possible that Woods never took performance-enhancing substances, you never want to be linked to the same doctors that treated A-Rod. That guy is basically a walking steroid at this point.
