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Breach of Anti-Doping Condition Discovered After Competition Closed

Q. In stroke play, a Committee discovers after a competition has closed that a player was in breach of that competition's anti-doping condition, which carries a penalty of disqualification. If the player claims no prior knowledge of the breach, how should Rule 34-1b(iv) be interpreted?

A. Anti-doping conditions adopt a policy whereby a player is held to be responsible for a breach of the condition regardless of how this may have happened. Therefore, from a Rules of Golf perspective, a player who commits a breach of such an anti-doping condition is deemed to have known he was in breach of a Rule, for which the penalty is disqualification. Accordingly, Exception (iv) to Rule 34-1b applies and the player must be disqualified.