Watson goes to great lengths to ensure medication is legal

• By Jason Sobel
• Jan 30, 2013 5:37 PM ET

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. – “I've never taken deer-antler spray. I don't even know how you take deer-antler spray.”

Those were the words of Bubba Watson after Wednesday’s pro-am at the Waste Management Phoenix Open, which would have sounded like jibberish more than 24 hours earlier.

In the wake of Vijay Singh’s admission to using the substance that contains IGF-1, though, which is banned under the PGA Tour’s Anti-Doping Policy, players have been increasingly asked about it – even if most have no idea what it is.

“We all make mistakes; we all do some bad things in our lives,” Watson said. “It's about overcoming the bad things, bad mistakes. But truthfully, it's sad that people do stuff like that. It's sad that people would put some weird thing like that in their body not knowing what it's going to do to their body. But I love a sport; I happen to play golf. I love this sport. I would never do that.

“I would never put something named that in my body. … I don't live and die by golf, so if I can't make it on the PGA Tour, if I lose my Tour card, I'm never going to go to deer-antler spray to try to help me. It would just be I'd have to find a new job.”

Watson is still recovering from strep throat, which caused him to withdraw from last week’s Farmers Insurance Open. He maintained that even when taking over-the-counter drugs for illness, he checks with PGA Tour officials to ensure the medication doesn’t contain anything on the banned substance list.

“I always check it because that's the one thing – I've never been drunk in my life, I don't drink alcohol,” he explained. “I've never done a drug in my life, so that's the one thing I never want to be caught when people say I'm a cheater. Yeah, I go to lengths to make sure everything is legal.”