Why Does Tiger Woods Get a Free Pass on Steroids?

(Photo by Scott Halleran/Getty Images)

In a time when almost every athlete is questioned for steroid use, one star has continued to shine bright with any scrutiny: Tiger Woods.

Nowadays, if you're a baseball player, wrestler, or Olympic athlete, you are guilty until proven innocent when it comes to performance enhancing drugs.

PED's like HGH have become so rampant in sports than when an athlete does something out of the ordinary, the first thing that everyone questions is whether the guy is clean or not.

Except for with Tiger Woods.

Woods has quietly been shredding up the record books on the PGA Tour and sportsbook odds can't get any higher for him for each tournament that he enters. He's as dominant as it gets.

So how come he hasn't fallen into the steroid spotlight?

The first tip-off is typically body type, and while many 'roid ragers have grown huge over night, Woods has slowly grown into his body.

You wouldn't compare Woods' body progression with someone like Shawne Merriman or Barry Bonds, but a more apt comparison might be Alex Rodriguez.

Like Woods, Rodriguez was dominant early on in his career and when he was young, he too was quite skinny. Both have progressively developed their frames but at least one of them has admitted to growing the unclean way.

Detractors might say, why does a golfer need to use steroids? There's the obvious reason, which is driving the ball further, but there is also the mechanical element. Why would a baseball pitcher like Roger Clemens need to use steroids? Similar theories could be applied to golfers.

I'm not saying that Woods is a blatant cheater. Quite frankly, I have no evidence whatsoever that he has used performance enhancing drugs. But what I do wonder is why he doesn't face the criticism and the scrutiny that every other athlete of this generation has to deal with.

All sports fans hold Woods in such high regard whether they enjoy golf or not. In many ways, he's the most chaste legend of this era and should sports fans find out that he uses some kind of performance enhancers, it will be like finding out that the Tooth Fairy doesn't exist times 1000.

If a baseball player was setting records at Woods' pace or if an Olympic athlete was dominating the field like Woods is capable of, the first thing we would think about is steroids.

But with Woods, he gets the ultimate free pass.

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