Matt Every Has A Problem With The Tour’s Drug Testing

Matt Every has had quite the perplexing career. On the upside, he’s the last back-to-back winner at the Arnold Palmer Invitational. Those are also his only two Tour with roughly making half the cuts in 238 events.

He’s also a big proponent of using weed to calm his nerves–which has gotten him suspended twice. Obviously, he isn’t happy about the prejudice against the substance.

What’s interesting is Every was the first round leader of the API yesterday (horses for courses) but has fallen drastically down the leaderboard in round 2 going +8 thru 11 holes. Thus, does one conclude the wacky tobacky helps or not?

Mark Cannizaro has the details on why Every is incensed by the Tour’s anti-weed policy. Remember, consuming alcohol is not forbidden before a Tour round.

Every was suspended last fall for 12 weeks for testing positive and returned to play in January. He was arrested for possession of marijuana in 2010 and suspended by the Tour as a result of that as well. 

He said he has applied to the Tour for a Therapeutic Use Exemption (TUE) and has been denied.

“It’s not FDA approved,’’ Every said Thursday when asked why he’s been denied. “There’s a lot of reasons, I’m sure. It bothers me that it’s even an issue out here at all. I think it doesn’t do anybody any favors that it’s even on the list for a prohibited substance.

“You could fail for heroin and marijuana and the penalty is the same. If anyone wants to make the argument that that is performance enhancing, they have never done it before. I promise it’s not. Anxiety is a real thing and … I know I treat it the healthiest way possible for my body.

“But WADA [World Anti-Doping Agency] doesn’t think so and the Tour goes by what WADA says. It’s really silly, to be honest.’’

This is good…

What’s also silly is the fact the last time Every teed it up in a tournament was last Friday in the Honda Classic second round, he shot 20 shots more than he did Thursday. That day he posted an 85 that was lowlighted by the 11 he took on the par-3 fifth hole, where he hit four balls into the water.

Listening to him recount that hole Thursday was hilarious.

“OK, I’ll tell you what happened: It was a back-left pin, I was already going to miss the cut, the wind was off the right [and] I had been having problems all week holding the wind,’’ he said. “I’m not going to learn anything by skanking one out to the right and bailing out. I know I can do that. So, I wasn’t leaving that tee until I hit the shot I wanted and I flushed every one of them, like, exactly in the same spot in the water. And then finally I hit one that held it.

“I hit four 5-irons [into the water] and then one 4-iron [onto the green].’’

Asked why it took four 5-irons into the water to switch to a 4-iron, he said, “I think I had like two balls left and I just didn’t want to have to deal with that. I was ready to get out of there.’’

BTW, Every might go from leading after round one to missing the cut after his 83 today.